Social Learning and the Theory of Constructed Emotion
by jlluh
Summary: Early on, Penny thinks to have Sheldon help her make a comedy-science Youtube video. That small choice changes a lot. This is a story of the personal and intellectual growth of Penny and Sheldon Cooper. Not explicitly Shenny
1. Chapter 1

Suppose that the story begins some time late in season 1.

:::

Einstein had said that a great physicist ought to be able to explain even difficult concepts to a small child, and Feynman had agreed. It was reputed to be a good mental exercise to reduce matters to their simplest, plainest terms, so that even children, jocks, and floofy-heads could understand them.

Lacking access to any small children, Sheldon elected to make do with Penny. There should be at least one positive result of Leonard bringing her into life. He only awaited his moment.

#  
#

Sitting on the couch, hoping to scrounge up dinner from the boys, Penny said, "Dark matter?" Her nose wrinkled. "Sounds mysterious. Is that like the darkside?"

Howard droned on about wimps, and hopes for some machine being built in Europe that might detect wimps, and all Penny was sure of was that dark matter was from science, not a movie, and if she listened to Leonard talk about the hunt for wimps any longer, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from saying that there were wimps all around her.

She tuned him out.

Sheldon said, "Be quiet, Leonard. We don't know any of that for sure. Penny, dark matter, is, at bottom, an inconvenience to theoreticians. We were quite happy with just normal matter, I can tell you that, before astronomers told us the universe was mostly made of something else.

"So-"

"There's too much gravity," said Sheldon. "To put it roughly, matter — everything that's not energy is matter — pulls at itself. We call that gravity." He dropped a drinks coaster. "Boom. There it is. The earth pulls at the coaster, and the coaster pulls at the earth. Absent some interference, such as myself," he replaced the coaster on the coffee table, "they join. They want to be together. The very same gravity keeps the moon in orbit around the earth, the earth in orbit around the sun, and the sun in orbit around the galactic center. Does that make sense?"

"Sort of." It wasn't like gravity was a new idea to her. She'd graduated high school just fine. "But why doesn't the moon crash into the earth?" She'd always wondered that. Not with any urgency though, or enough interest to try and look it up.

"Good question. It would like to, but it can't, because it's going very fast. The orbital velocity is such that-"

"Stay on target," said Penny.

"I am precisely on target, but I will simplify further. You may think of the gravitational connection between two objects as a string. The more quickly a bound object is moving, the stronger the string must be that binds it. Otherwise, the string would stretch or break. By seeing how large everything is, and how quickly it's moving, we can count up all the gravity. When we do that, we find that there isn't nearly enough matter to account for the gravity. We have rechecked our measurement very, very carefully. So something we can't see is causing extra gravity. Or, that's the most obvious explanation. There are others — Modified Newtonian Gravity theories, for instance, which you can think of simply enough as the idea that perhaps gravity works differently at galactic scales — but the existence of matter which doesn't interact with other matter, or with electromagnetism, with light, is thus far what fits the data best."

Sheldon went on, and while some of the terms went over her head, she got the gist of it, and it was mildly interesting; as much as the guys talked about those things, she'd like to have some basic idea of what they were talking about. Usually it was Leonard who tried to explain things to her, but Sheldon, surprisingly, was a lot better at it, and Penny recalled that he was, despite his overwhelming Sheldonness, a lecturer at Cal Tech.

"Wait," said Penny. "The universe is expanding more and more quickly? Like, it's speeding up?" That didn't seem right. "With everything pulling at everything else, shouldn't it be slowing down?"

"Yes," said Sheldon. "It should. But it isn't. We call that one dark energy."

Penny's eyebrows rose as Sheldon explained. Science, it seemed, was more wacked than she'd realized.

Penny said, "You have no clue how it all works, do you?"

Sheldon drew himself up, crossing his arms. "I can well imagine how it seems to you, a community college drop out, but I assure you, we have entirely sound reasons for our conclusions. It all works splendidly at the level of the solar system."

"I guess," said Penny, waving him off, but Sheldon would not be stopped from explaining.

#  
#

There was no transparent inspiration, no spoon feeding of the idea from fate or coincidence. Penny was simply looking at a script for an audition, reading over the same four lines for the twentieth time, her mind turning over the surprising understandable lecture from Sheldon, wondering what the stuff about orbits had meant, when it occurred that it would make a decent Youtube video, for the people who were into that.

Her eyes left the script as she processed that idea.

It would make a _good_ Youtube video. Not just the explanation, but Sheldon being Sheldon. It was acting 101 that characters should have strong personalities, and Sheldon had maybe the strongest personality of anyone she'd ever met.

She would be in the video too. She would be _who he was explaining it to. _His foil. Sheldon talking to the viewer would be way condescending. But Sheldon talking to her… It was natural comedy.

She had a camera and a mic, left over from when she'd convinced herself she'd make her own scenes. It wasn't high quality equipment, but it was a hell of a lot better than a webcam.

She wrote out much less than a script. A series of questions to ask, of jokes to make, of ways for her to improv around Sheldon.

Checking the time, she gathered the video recorder and the mic and went across the hall.

#  
#

Sheldon was pleased with how his lecture had gone. Penny was a better small child than he'd given her credit for. He'd have to explain matters to her again in the future.

He was feeling charitably disposed to her when she burst into his apartment. Leonard had turned in early, but Sheldon supposed he had an hour or two of whiteboard duty in him before he sought his just respite.

She was carrying camera equipment.

Penny said, "Hey. I was thinking. That conversation we had. Don't you think it would be a great Youtube video?"

"A video?" said Sheldon, considering the idea. He had spent a great deal of time watching Youtube himself, and making his own video was intriguing. "As a scientist, it is my duty to educate the heathen masses." Decisively, he said, "We'll start at the very beginning, with the Ancient Greeks, 26 hundred years ago."

"How about we do the same thing we did earlier. Gravity and dark matter."

"But that's not the beginning. We should start at the beginning."

"We should start with something cool, and dark matter sounds a lot cooler than ancient dead Greek guys."

"The ancient Greeks were fascinating. They created a tradition of systematic though that that has continued ever sense. Aristotle is over-rated, but Democritus-"

Giving him her death glare, Penny said, "You wanna do this or not?"

Sheldon folded. "Richard Feynman did say that physicists should be less like Greek mathematicians and more like Babylonian ones. Rather than beginning with the most basic postulates and logically building up, we should be able to start at any territory on the map, as it were, and proceed from there."

"Right, whatever. Gravity and dark matter. Now help me set this up."

The apartment was already very clean, and they set up on the couch, Penny moving Sheldon's math-covered whiteboard behind it.

She told him what to do, as much as he would listen to her, and Penny started recording.

He was awkward as hell. Way more than normal, sitting all scrunched up. She told him to open up, and he somehow got worse.

Penny said, "Ignore the camera. Just explain it to me."

He turned away from the camera entirely.

"No, you can't… Pretend you're explaining it to me, but Howard is watching through the camera, and we have to be turned toward the camera just enough that he can see what we're doing."

"Why would Wolowitz be watching us through the camera? That's disturbing."

"Just do it."

She positioned him at a three-quarters turn, as if the camera were the audience in a stage play and she and he were carrying on dialog.

He shut his eyes, breathed deeply, and said, "Yes, it is Wolowitz watching us. Wolowitz. Wolowitz. Wolowitz.

His eyes popped open, and Sheldon leaned toward the camera, eyes wide, nostrils flaring. "And I'm Doctor Sheldon Cooper, PhD, PhD, and you are honored to learn from me."

Penny smiled brightly and said, "And I'm Penny Queen, a waitress and aspiring actress."

And they were off, Sheldon explaining with his usual sarcasm and quirkiness, and Penny referring to her cue cards to ask questions. Sheldon was still awkward as hell, but just in his usual way. He was acting like himself and explaining things to her, and it went fine, went _well, _and it wouldn't be any problem to cut the other stuff out.

"Because of the Doppler Effect, we know-

Penny said, "What's the Doppler Effect?"

Sheldon's eyes widened, as if the question shocked and scandalized him. "You don't know what the Doppler Effect is? I knew you'd dropped out of community college, but it seems you dropped out of high school as well."

"Sweetie?"

"Yes, Penny?"

"I will drive my fist down your throat."

Sheldon retracted. Contritely, he said, "I'll explain the Doppler Effect to you."

"We'll do another video."

"No, it's easy to explain. Eee-Uuuu Eee-uuu Eee-uuu-"

She poked his neck.

"Don't touch me! People can't touch me without permission."

"Sheldon, we'll do another video. Let's just assume for now that you can tell how quickly things are moving away. Get back to dark matter. You said most of it's wrapped around the galaxy, like a halo. But is there any here?"

Sheldon said, "It's mostly at the edges, but there's dark matter all around us, refusing to interact with us. It greatly outmasses 'normal' matter. Baryonic matter. It's not inaccurate to say that the universe we see around us, the stars, the planets, ourselves, are a flimsy raft floating upon an unknown dark ocean. Anything may lurk in its depths; we've no way of seeing what it contains. But someday, we'll find a way into that dark world, and nothing will ever be the same."

Penny stared. "Sheldon, that sounds… spiritual."

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "It's nothing of the sort. It's simple scientific fact."

#  
#

The next day, before and after her shift, Penny broke the video into halves, edited each until they were both a little under 10 minutes, chuckling at a few parts, hoping other people thought it was funny too, and posted them on Youtube, under the account, 'Nebraska Barbie and the Wackadoodle.'

Penny Queen was her stage name, which she'd adopted after the thought of Serial Apist being seen by her Aunt had given her the cold sweats, but Nebraska Barbie had more character, she thought.

She checked the next morning, finding the first video had a few dozen views, and the second video had a few views. Most likely all from Penny's followers on Facebook and Myspace.

The first video had no comments. The second video had a single comment, reading, 'lol, xd.'

Cheered, Penny decided to make another video. About the Doppler Effect.

As it turned out, Sheldon had several appropriate science toys, and a costume too. Her reaction on seeing it was the best part of the video, in her opinion, and his explanation of the Doppler Effect made sense to her, eventually. As did the subsequent videos, on subsequent days, on atoms and velocity versus speed, and why the difference actually mattered.

That was the kicker to Penny. She was understanding. Not anywhere near to the level the boys did, sure, but she was getting the basic ideas. And she hadn't known she could do that.

It changed things, to know she could do that.

#

Borrowing sciencey props from Sheldon, Penny set up a shooting space in her apartment. There were more comments on the videos, and she didn't want the guys to know yet. Didn't want them to oh-so-helpfully take the show away from her.

Two or three videos a week were a tough pace, with everything else she had to do, but Penny kept it up. She'd set up the equipment and have him explain it to her, recording the lesson. Then she'd go over it, write a rough improv script for herself, and have him do it again. Then she'd edit, splicing the two videos together as appropriate, searching for the trifecta of funny, comprehensible, and under 10 minutes.

The videos were gathering views. Hundreds, thousands even. Far below what the major channels had, but Penny harbored hope of supplementary income and being able to put it on her portfolio and impress a casting director or two. She added a message at the end of each video asking people to subscribe.

In it, Sheldon leaned too close to the camera, saying, with complete sincerity, "If you don't subscribe, you risk missing my brilliance."

Rolling her eyes, Penny pulled him back from the camera, ignoring his protests about being touched, flashed a megawatt smile, and said, "What he said. Learn more. Pass a class. Have some fun. Subscribe."

It seemed to work, because subscription numbers jolted way up when Penny started adding the message to the end of every video.

Weeks passed, and Penny made categories. Physics. Basic Mathemetics (which Penny needed for the physics.) Comic Book Physics. Movie Physics Reviews. Those last were killer, with the Wackadoodle taking it all way too seriously, and Nebraska Barbie rolling her eyes at him. They started out with his bit on how Louis Lane should've been cut into three pieces when Superman had caught her. Owing to F = MA, and all.

Penny took the basic steps to _monetize. _If the Channel brought in even a hundred dollars a month, while serving as something to put in her portfolio, that would be awesome.

#

The five of them were gathered for Halo night. Sheldon had, eventually, resigned himself to uneven teams, so long as he got to be with Penny, since they were the two best players. But Raj was insisting, by way of whispering into Howard's ear, that Penny and Sheldon couldn't be together again.

Leonard was waiting for it to end, messing around on his laptop, when he sucked it in a breath.

Moments later, Penny heard a familiar opening.

He shoved his laptop in front of them all, looking wide-eyed at what it showed — the Wackadoodle enthusiastically explaining the 'science' of the Flash to a dryly sarcastic Nebraska Barbie.

"Penny," said Leonard. "What is this?"

"What does it look like?"

Leonard clicked through. "There's 20 of these!"

"23," corrected Sheldon. "Your inability to perform numerical operations as basic as accurate counting is yet one more reason for me to despair of your career. As an empiricist, counting is one of your core skills."

Raj and Howard leaned over Leonard's shoulder as he started another video, one in which the Wackadoodle explained orbits to a skeptical and disinterested Nebraska Barbie.

On screen, the Nebraska Barbie said, "Explain it with shoes," bringing several shoes out.

"I'm not touching your shoes."

"I've sanitized them."

The Wackadoodle reached forward, but recoiled in the end from touching them.

The Nebraska Barbie wordlessly handed him a pair of rubber gloves, and the Wackadoodle hurriedly put them on.

Raj giggled and Howard smiled.

"Suppose this pink sandal were in proximity to this brown leather boot. And they were both several billion times more massive, and so had been formed by gravity into near perfect spheres, the boot-object being assuredly the largest mass of leather in existence."

"It's suede, honey."

"There would be a strong attraction between them, declining as the inverse of the square of the distance."

"What?"

"We've talked about this, Penny, and you've forgotten already? Honestly, why do I even try?"

"Explain it again, Sweetie, before I touch you with my foot."

Paling, the Wackadoodle explained it again, and at length the video ended, the next automatically queuing up.

Leonard hit cancel, the three boys staring at Penny and Sheldon.

Raj whispered into a shocked Howard's ear.

"He says it's good," said Howard. "He's right."

"I am hilarious," said Sheldon. "The commenters all say so." Even as he said so, Sheldon looked uncomfortable. Penny knew he had plenty of experience being laughed at.

Visibly frustrated, but not dishonest, Leonard said, "It's fine. From what I see, the videos aren't making fun of you. It's just the dynamic between you two."

Sheldon was relieved, and Penny was too. Leonard could've put the kibosh on it.

Leonard said, "How long have you two been doing these?"

"Several weeks," said Penny, even as Sheldon said, "Nine weeks and two days."

"Oh," said Leonard, hurt.

Penny said, "I wanted to figure out what I was doing before I told you guys about it."

Howard said, "We could do videos too."

Penny smiled, not sincerely.

She'd watched videos by her competitors in the 'science Youtube space.' If she tried doing a video with Raj, he wouldn't speak. If she tried doing one with Howard, he'd be creepy. If she tried doing one with Leonard, it would be just like the videos of her competitors, only viewers would wonder why she was so involved, why she was in front of the camera.

That didn't mean she wouldn't ever do videos with them, but no one else had anything like Nebraska Barbie and the Wackadoodle.

Howard said, "You could make a lot of money with these."

Penny said, "That's what I wanted to talk to Sheldon about today. Sweetie, I've been figuring out how to monetize, and I've got 82 bucks. I thought a 3-1 split made sense."

"Reasonable," agreed Sheldon. "You may give me a check for 61 dollars and 50 cents."

Penny had already done the math on her phone calculator, so it was no mystery what he meant. "I get the 3, and you get the one. I get $61.50, and you get $20.50."

"Preposterous. I'm the one providing the expertise."

"I'm the one planning the videos, making question lists, planning gags, setting up props, recording the videos, editing them, mixing them together, running the monetization, and doing the advertisements."  
"All of which can be done by someone without a Doctorate, as you've demonstrated. It's menial intellectual labor, Penny. You may be putting in more time, but my time is vastly more valuable, as our payscales at our respective places of work demonstrates."

Penny's hands curled into fists, but it was her death glare that made him regard her warily.

"Not that I have any need for the money, but it's the principle of the matter."

Pennny spoke sweetly. "Don't you want to be like Bill Nye?"

"Don't you dare compare me to Bill Nye. Penny, I have nothing but respect for his work as a science entertainer for small children — indeed, I still know the words to his theme song," in a clear tenor, he began, "'Bill, Bill, Bill Nye, Bill Nye the Science Guy,'" before stopping and returning to speech "but the man doesn't even have a doctorate. Or consider Neil Degrasse Tyson. He's a respectable scientist, by the standards of astrophysicists, but his chief fame is simply as a science communicator. Sadly, the same must be said even for the great Carl Sagan. Richard Feynman is the last figure to be both one of the greatest scientists of his age, and the greatest science communicator of his age. A status I am well positioned to take for my own."

"And I'm helping you do that."

"I could find someone else."

"Really?" said Penny. "Who?"

Sheldon was flummoxed only briefly. "One of my grad students would surely be amenable."

"Yeah," said Penny. "A grad student. Someone who already understands it. That'll work great. I'm sure they'll be hilarious too."

After a moment's thought, Sheldon said, "Sarcasm?"

"Uh-huh."

"We could be partners," Sheldon offered. "You'd be the junior partner, but I'd split the money with you 50-50, because I'm magnanimous. That's my final offer."

"Sounds good," said Penny. "But unless you split the 'intellectual menial labor with me,' how about you pay me an extra 10 percent for it.'" With her glare, she let him know that was her final offer. "60-40."

Sheldon cleared his throat. "In deference to your poverty, I will consent. But you owe me 10 additional monthly favors. And a check for $32.80."

:::

Apologies for any and all scientific errors. I'm an English teacher.

To me, Big Bang Theory is a wolf in sheep's clothing. At first look, it's a silly, shallow sit-com with ridiculously overdone caricatures and an omnipresent laugh track. Look a little closer, and it's a comfort show about deeply dysfunctional people finding fellowship together. Look closer still, and it's one of the most deeply cynical shows ever aired on American television, the overdone caricatures and the omnipresent laugh track being the surrealism needed to make us smile instead of cry.

The characters are mean to each other. Rather than growing as people, they give up on their dreams and go stale. There is little real closeness. Some characters have their moments together, but it seldom seems to me that those they're closest to or whose company they most enjoy are those they choose to bind themselves to. They are largely dissatisfied with their marriages.

I've come around to the idea that BBT is an intentionally depressing modern masterpiece.

I don't like depressing.

This story is now into season 2. Assume that everything else is thus far proceeding as in canon, with appropriate minor modifications.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch 2

Penny was all-in on the Channel. Learning math or science wasn't fun, and editing videos was just okay, but they were both a damn sight better than working at the Cheesecake Factory, and it wasn't such a dead end, and it was a kind of acting.

Nebraska Barbie was a character who was very similar to, but not quite the same as, Penny. Nebraska Barbie wore cowboy boots and low-cut buttoned plaid shirts, and she could navigate the plains simply by her knowledge of the stars.

They'd developed a very clear, very effective dynamic. The Wackadoodle was the bizarre, brilliant teacher, and Nebraska Barbie was the not-that-bright student who represented the viewer, and together, they were comedy gold.

There were a lot of comments about her looks, and aside from the more vulgar ones, Penny didn't mind. That a number of the male viewers had harmless little crushes on her gave her a warm glow so long as she didn't think about the possibility of crazy stalkers.

There were, very rarely, comments about Sheldon being cute, and they got Penny thinking. That leads should be attractive was the principle Hollywood had been built on.

Penny made her move during the shooting of the practice video for part four of their series on optics. The fourth video was focusing on color, which according to Sheldon was merely a 'very slight difference in the frequency of the waves."

His demonstration involved him gingerly demonstrating with her recently washed scrunchies, and Penny sprang her surprise on him.

"Explain this to me, Wackadoodle," she said, bringing out a color wheel.

"It's a color wheel," said Sheldon. "Invented by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. I would expect even you to know that."

"But explain how it's used to choose clothing."

Sheldon went very still. "What?"

"I use a color wheel every day to help plan my outfits. I don't actually look at it often. It's in my head. But it's what I use." That was only partially true — like anyone who read fashion magazines regularly, Penny was familiar with the color wheel, but she usually just choose what looked good to her — but that wasn't how you talked to Sheldon.

Sheldon's fingers twiddled rapidly, and he looked at her with undisguised amazement. "How does one use Sir Isaac Newton's color wheel in the selection of clothing?"

Penny explained about complementary and analogous colors in fashion, and Sheldon listened in apparent fascination.

#

After a day of research on his own, Sheldon demanded that Penny take him to the store, and he returned from the trip with a new wardrobe. The superhero t-shirts were non-negotiable, as was wearing long-sleeved shirts under them, and jeans were not to be thought of, but everything else was in service to Sheldon's quest to achieve an optimal balance of colors, coordinating the long-sleeved shirts with the t-shirts, and with his pasty skin tone. He even bought a number of necklaces for the sake of 'accents.'

He bought pants that weren't Khaki or plaid. One pair of black slacks and two pairs of dark blue Dockers, at Penny's insistence, but he would never be a fan of black, would always favor bright colors, and would never restrict his bottom half to black and dark blue.

She did, at least, convince him that darker shades could help the bright ones pop. He looked better for the changes, and when he wasn't talking, Penny could almost convince herself that he was a fashion pioneer.

Attempts to get him to grow out his hair into less of a cap went poorly, since 'long hair was unsanitary, and a distraction from physics,' and 'he didn't want to look like a teen heartthrob.'

Penny said, "But I thought that it was an instinctual reaction for other men to give in to more attractive men, since they look more dominant and all."

Sheldon couldn't disagree with that, since he'd told it to her, and he promised to take her suggestions regarding cut and layering 'under advisement,' and the next time he came back from getting his hair cut, it was a little better.

Comments about Dr. Wackadoodle being cute went from very rare to simply rare, and their key metrics edged up. Skincare turned out to be an empty well, since Sheldon already had a rigorous skincare routine that was probably better than Penny's own, but exercise was next.

Penny couldn't imagine Sheldon joining a gym, but she could imagine him with a nightly exercise routine to 'promote health and wellness, and ensure he lived long enough to save his mind to a computer.' A brief, nightly exercise routine, centered around as little as 20 push-ups, would do a lot to help him fill out his shirts.

She did a little googling, and oodles of research showed that fitness made people a little smarter, but Penny didn't have to be a genius to know that evidence from 'the soft sciences, which hardly deserve to be called science at all, their certainty levels are embarrassing,' were no match for a defense mechanism.

But even a defense mechanism was no match for Sheldon going full geek.

#  
#

They were killing the others at Halo when Penny brought it up.

"I like the laser sword," she said, killing Howard with one.

"And I looove when you penetrate me with it," said Howard.

Penny ignored that. "There's hardly any skill to using it though. Just distance and timing. Real sword fighting takes a lot of skill."

Howard and Leonard started talking about Samurai.

Penny retook control by saying, "You mean Kenjutsu. Kendo is just a sport. Kenjutsu is the martial art."

They stared.

Penny, who had done her research, said, "I've been thinking about adding to my exercise routine."

Sheldon said, "We have no interest in your exercise routine, Penny."

Leonard said, "Yes we do. Go on."

"There's this HEMA place around here. 'Historical European Martial Arts.' How to use swords and stuff. Thought it might be good for me. Another skill to put in my acting portfolio."

Howard, Raj and Leonard looked a little curious and a little confused.

Suddenly caring, Sheldon said, "Explain."

"They teach people how to sword fight, for real, based on old manuscripts. Treatises. It sounds fun."

Voice rising in pitch, Sheldon said, "Real Historical European Treatises on sword fighting? With diagrams?"

Penny smiled. "The i33 sword and buckler treatise, from the year 1300, reminds many people of Wing Chun Kung Fu. But the nearest HEMA club is focused more on longswords."

As if it were a new though, Penny said, "Lightsabers are based on longswords, aren't they?"

Sheldon's jaw worked. "You are attempting to manipulate me into exercise so that I will develop greater musculature, thus attracting sexually frustrated women and homosexual men to the Channel."

"Yep," said Penny. "And it's working too."  
"No it isn't," Sheldon snapped. He struggled. "But what is the address of this place?"

#

#

Penny didn't quite know what she was doing in a wood-floored building with thirty other people, holding a bendy nylon sword. She'd gotten the bit between her teeth, regarding making Sheldon into a proper lead, and had just kept going.

Luckily or unluckily, they'd had good timing with the start of a beginning longsword class. So Penny was there with the four boys, watching the instructor explain and demonstrate with his partner.

The instructor would do things slowly, and then very, very quickly. There was more grappling and pushing and shoving than she would've expected in a sword fight. He was fond of repeating the point that swords weren't magic-slice-anything-machines. They were sharpened bars of steel.

It didn't look much like movie sword fighting, which was strange, because while some of it was scratchy, much of it was damned impressive. It pushed home the reality that as strange and nerdy as studying sword fighting might seem in modern times, what the class taught was how people had gone about killing other people for most of human history.

Leonard and Howard were intimidated, Raj was frightened but excited, and Sheldon's eyes glowed.

When the instructor set them to doing a few basic moves, at half speed and out of measure, Penny hurriedly paired up with Sheldon. Instinct told her that if he paired up with any of the other guys, he'd end up chasing them around the room, and they'd be disinvited from the next class.

#  
#

Howard and Leonard didn't sign up, but Raj did. A lot of the students were women, and according to Howard, Raj liked the idea of 'communicating with them with his body.'

Penny let that pass.

Sheldon bought a complete set of protective gear for himself, all new and clean, and one of the bendy, nylon practice swords, since blunt steel practice swords weren't for beginners.

To her great surprise, Sheldon paid her yearly dues and bought the same gear for Penny, announcing that the purchases accounted for Saturnalia and her birthday both, and she was to drive him to the HEMA club whenever he liked.

Penny, supposing it was his way of thanking her for introducing him to a sword fighting club, was surprised to find she didn't mind. Sword fighting might be the nerdiest possible sport, but it was a sport, and a shockingly fun one. She'd grown up playing baseball and softball, and riding bulls, and had done cheer in high school — anyone who thought Cheer wasn't a serious sport hadn't done it properly. Swinging a practice sword felt like reclaiming something that had gone missing from her life.

She also hadn't been lying about how it might be useful for an actress to know.

Between sword fighting, horseback riding, lassoing, shooting, and paintballing, her skills section was taking on a distinct theme.

Add to that, she was actually starting to understand the basics of optics. She'd originally thought it would be a two to three video series, but she quickly realizing that the optics series was going to be much, much longer than that.

She was still Penny, but her Wackadoodle made more sense to her every day.

#  
#

Drifting thoughts of Antimatter particles and the Strong Nuclear Force kept Sheldon awake. Penny had been surprised to discover that Antimatter was real, and occasionally produced by scientists and cosmic rays, and not just an invention of science fiction.

Making the video had gotten his own mind going, and Sheldon had a thought.

He got up and scrawled it out. It took him hardly 40 minutes, and, content, he went back to bed.

It was no great epiphany. No scientific revelation. Just a nice little morsel that could be extended into a solid, respectable paper, if he cared to.

Sheldon produced a certain number of such papers every year, to keep the University happy. Enough to keep himself clearly in the top third. He devoted the rest of his time to the most difficult and intractable issues in string theory. To the Theory of Everything, in fact.

The morsel would go into his ideas drawer, to be sorted through the next time he needed to publish a new paper. The drawer was of late becoming fuller than usual. A natural consequence of explaining things to Penny. Just as Feynman and Einstein had said, the act of reducing physics to the plainest possible language, of meticulously explaining every mental leap that came naturally to him, was a good exercise.

Perhaps he'd produce a few more papers than necessary, to reduce and lessen the likelihood of being scooped.

#

#

Life wore on. Funny hijinks ensued. Penny cut back her auditions to handle The Channel, but as the Channel grew at a steady rate, and Penny figured out more and better ways to monetize, she cut back her hours at the Cheesecake Factory instead. She bought a new pink laptop, which sped up the video editing, and a new camera and a new mic.

She, Sheldon and Raj went to the HEMA club once a week, on Monday nights, but on Friday afternoons, if she wasn't working, she went by herself. It was good exercise, and with Sheldon's arms being so long, she had to practice more than he did to make sure she kept beating him.

Sheldon took on a short morning exercise routine to improve his swordsmanship, filled out his shirts a little better, and a commenter referred to him as 'Dr. Dish,' which kept Penny smiling the whole day.

Attractive co-star, check. And it got Penny thinking about how somewhere out there was the woman for Sheldon, and she wanted to meet that weirdo.

Penny was thinking of giving up on acting and devoting herself to Youtube videos full-time when she got a small part in a commercial. She said, "Granddad!" and gave an old man a hug.

That was it. Hardly more than being an extra, and she'd been an extra plenty. She'd had bigger roles even. But it was for a national commercial, not some local car dealership, and unlike, say, _Serial Apist_, it hadn't been the least bit skanky.

It was a tiny item to put on her portfolio. Well under the Channel, which according to her newly-attentive agent, was attracting interest from Casting Directors. It'd probably gotten her the commercial part, and that part would help her get another part. There was an exponential growth feel to it.

But Penny could hardly think about that. It was the first speaking role she'd had that would appear on _national_ TV, and she almost didn't want to cash the check.

It was a small check, and she cashed it and put the bills in the pocket in her purse. New shoes? Save it up to fix her car? A few drinks at a party?

Maybe it was for holding onto. For remembering. For keeping against the day when she'd have nothing.

Penny bought the Godfather, Part I and Part II.

#  
#

Leonard liked it, or acted like he did — it was always hard to tell with a guy trying to get into her pants — Howard was bored, having seen it a hundred times before, and Raj was petrified in terror and had gotten behind the couch.

Sheldon was ramrod straight, as if electrified, eyes glued to the TV, but what he thought of it, she couldn't guess.

When the movie ended, Sheldon snatched up the DVD remote, returned to main menu, and pressed play, re-starting the movie.

"There's a Part II, you know," said Leonard.

"I will first re-watch Part I," responded Sheldon.

"I'm not watching it again," said Howard.

Raj whispered in Howard's ear.

Howard said, "Raj and I are gonna take off. See ya later. Thanks for the movie, Penny. Unless," he winked, "you'd like to join me?"

Penny hurried them toward the door with a glare and a half-hearted kick.

When they were gone, Leonard said, "And I'm going to bed." He smiled invitingly at her. Leonard had broken up with his last girlfriend, and she and he had since started a bit of a thing. Just a bit. Friends were different than casuals, and she wasn't going to sleep with him if she wasn't sure the relationship had somewhere to go. It would just make things all weird if it didn't work out.

Penny said, "I'm down to watch it again. It's a classic. As an actress, I need to-"

"Shush" said Sheldon, pointing to the TV. The FBI warning was over, and the movie was starting.

Leonard said, "I'll stay up with you. Keep you company."

"Shush," said Sheldon.

They watched in silence, Leonard's arm sneaking around her shoulder, which she allowed, but his arm fell off her shoulder when he fell asleep, mouth open.

When the credits rolled for the second time, Sheldon got up, turned on the lights, and said, "From now on, Apocalypse Week includes a section on Italian Mobsters."  
Maybe not her best idea.

#  
#

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Penny opened the door in her bathrobe. "It's 10 O'clock in the morning, Sheldon."

"I know. But it was my understanding that, due to your early acting calls and your recent decline in time spent at late night waitressing, you've been keeping an earlier schedule. Is that not correct?"

Even as she was telling him that the 'don't-bother-Penny-before-11' rule stood regardless, Sheldon was sliding past her and into her apartment, saying, "I haven't been to the zoo in nearly two months, and Leonard _insists _that he can't take me. He has to visit the dentist, or so he claims. You may drive me instead."

"I was gonna edit a video."

"You may do so another time."

She could. With more and more money from NWBD, she'd been cutting back her shifts at the Cheesecake factory. She could make the time, and she didn't recall that she'd ever been to a zoo in her life. Penny said, "Why don't we bring the camera and make a video. It could be fun. Sort of a slice of life. 'NBWD goes to the zoo.'"

"But who would record it?" said Sheldon. "We could go to the Home Depot and hire one of those nice men who wait outside it, but I don't know if they have any experience in cinematography."

"I was thinking of asking Raj."

"Good thought," said Sheldon. "I'm surprised you had it. As long as you're in sight, he won't make a sound. But what incentive would you offer him? I could let him borrow some of my Batman comics, but he'd have to sign a contract promising to only handle them while wearing gloves and never take them out of my apartment."

Penny said, "I thought I'd ask him nicely."

"I fail to see how that would have any impact on his decision making.

"I'll give him a hug and a kiss on his cheek."

"You'd best change into something more substantial than that bathrobe first, or he'll keel over and die of shock, and then he won't be able to operate the video recorder."

#  
#

The Los Angeles Zoo was large, with palm trees out front and a sign that reminded Penny of the Hollywood sign, like they'd used a similar font, maybe.

Sheldon was clearly happy to be there, having talked Penny's and Raj's ears off about it in the car.

To Raj, Penny said, "I've got extra batteries, and extra SD cards, so just keep it running unless I tell you to turn it off. I'll edit it later."

Raj whispered in Sheldon's ear.

"Speak to her yourself."

Raj whispered more urgently.

"Fine, I'll tell her. But you're making us look ridiculous. Penny, Raj wants to know when he'll get a break."

"When we're done," said Penny. "You take a break when I tell you to."

Raj whispered again, and Sheldon said, "Despite the fact that he isn't being paid and so isn't at work, Raj wishes to file a formal complaint against the 'working conditions' and request union representation."

Penny said, "I'll buy your lunch. Now buck up."

Raj brightened, and Sheldon said, "Penny, you've never payed for lunch before."

"I'm paying for Raj's lunch only. Not yours."

Raj said, "I'm getting something you're not, Sheldon."

He sniffed. "It's only manners that Penny buy lunch for the help."

Interrupting that before it could escalate, Penny helped Raj put on the three-axis gimbal, a gift from one of her subscribers. It wrapped around his hips and up his back and generally made him look like a colossal geek.

It would help them get smooth video, though Raj promised his steps were as 'smooth as any tiger's'. Mostly, though, Penny made sure he knew how to operate the camera and that there wouldn't be some 'funny' moment at the end of the day where it turned out Raj hadn't been taking video after all.

With that done, Penny put on her and Sheldon's little mikes and said, "Remember, we have to stay in character."

Sheldon said, "Character?"

"You know. Act like you usually do when we make videos."

"You wish me to pretend the camera is Wolowitz, but not address it as such, increase my frequency of whimsical remarks, and, in defiance of the camera being Wolowitz, tone down my scathing critiques of others' intelligence in order not to damage the fragile egos of watching children?"

"Yeah."

"Very well. I will stay 'in character.' Raj, activate the video recorder."

Penny knew very well it was already on, but Raj put a thumb up.

Looking behind them, Penny repositioned Sheldon a little so the entrance and its sign would frame them perfectly in the camera's view, Sheldon stiff as a board as she did, resigned to the contact, used to Penny's direct approach to staging.

She put herself close to him, so they were not quite touching and with the zoo's sign and a crowd in the background, they began.

Smiling megawatt, Penny said, "Hey, I'm Penny Queen, struggling actress and part-time waitress."

"And I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD, PhD, and it's your honor to accompany me on my trip to the zoo."

Rolling her eyes at him, Penny said, "What Sheldon means is he was moaning about how he hadn't been to the zoo in a month, and I had to drive him, and I thought it'd try turning it into a slice of life sorta vid. Come on. Let's go."

They turned, headed for the entrance, and Sheldon said, "We're not supposed to turn our backs to the camera."

"This time we are."

"But we're not supposed to."  
"It's fine. It's just a type of shot we don't do a lot. But shooting from the back shows up in plenty of movies. Mostly action movies."

They got their tickets, the woman at the counter giving Raj a long look but not saying anything about it, and once they were through, Penny made a beeline for a suitably clear spot, where the noise of families was a little less, and tugging on Sheldon's arm, turned him about with her.

"So, Wackadoodle. Where to?"

He handed her a sheet of computer paper, double-sided with lines and questions. "This is your animal observation sheet."

"My what now?"

"Your animal observation sheet. It's only one sheet, double-sided. I made it short and easy, just for you. There's a section for large cats, small cats, koalas, elephants, South American monkeys, African Monkeys, Indian and South Asian monkeys, Great Apes, and cockatoos, of which they have a very fine collection."

Penny read aloud, "Aggressive behavior? Poop slinging? Play behavior involving locomotion or manipulation?"

Sheldon pointed to a spot on the paper. "Keeping your interests in mind, I've created a special section just for coitus. It's very rare to witness in the exhibits. Animals known by the zookeepers to be in heat, or Pon Farr, as I prefer to call it, are typically taken backstage."

Leaving aside that Sheldon apparently thought she'd enjoy watching baboons fuck, Penny said, "Have you ever thought of just walking around the museum like a normal person and enjoying yourself?"

"This _is_ how I enjoy myself." He handed her a pen.

Wrinkling her nose and casting her eyes skyward, mugging for the camera, Penny said, "Fine, I'll give it a try." She'd had no idea he would spring that on her, but it was good. Really good. It'd give the whole trip a tension it had been missing.

"Then let's start with the big cats, saving the best for last."

Penny shrugged, shaking her head in exasperation, waited a beat, and said "Raj, you get all that?"  
Raj put a thumb up in confirmation.

The late morning and early afternoon passed with only a few animals. Sheldon was a believer in taking a seat and watching and watching, filling out his behavior observation sheet. Penny kept a running tally of all the little scenes that might make the whole video, even stopping twice to re-shoot a conversation with an added or modified joke.

And Penny was getting tired of it. It was shaping up to be a good video. She was aware from the comments that her regular viewers were at least as interested in the relationship as in the science, and it would be bang up as far as that went. But if she was going to be at the zoo, she wanted to see all of it, like a normal person, walking freely around, not filling out an observation sheet.

Penny didn't hide that at all. The conflict, that 'odd couple' chemistry, was part of what made their videos good.

Penny shoved the observation sheet into his hands and said, "I'm going to take a walk. Raj, stick with Sheldon."

Penny. Where are you going?"

She threw the observation sheet at him and said, "See ya later, Sheldon. Have fun watching the ocelot for another half hour."

She walked quickly away, and Sheldon didn't chase after her. She disappeared behind a bend, making a beeline for the elephants.

#  
#

"Well, that was rude," said Sheldon.

"Should I keep the camera running?"

"Of course you should keep the camera running. What kind of question is that? Penny abandoned me at the zoo, throwing the observation sheet I prepared especially for her right in my face. It's a dramatic moment."

"Right."

Sheldon said, "There's nothing to be done but to continue my scheduled observations and hope that Penny will not become hopelessly lost within the zoo's labyrinthine structure."

Looking at the small, leopard-spotted cat making its way through the brush of the exhibit, pouncing on insects, Raj said, "At least the ocelot is cute."

"Cute?" said Sheldon. "It's a deadly hunter, sleek and powerful."

"It's hardly bigger than a house cat."

"And if you were the size of a mouse, you'd evacuate your bowels just looking at it. It would bat you around like a little chew toy before breaking your back and chewing you up, carefully avoiding your entrails."

"Not if I had an edged longsword on me."

"Interesting concept," said Sheldon. "We would indeed be small prey to it, not worth the risk of injury. But I think we'd have to be at least rat-sized to resist an ocelot, even with longswords. Perhaps we'd do better with spears, or some other sort of polearm, polearms, historically, being the primary weapons, swords typically serving as sidearms, except, at times, when used in conjunction with a shield, or, in much rarer cases, alongside heavy armor."

Raj said, "I know all that, Sheldon."

"Just checking. Who knows how much you retain in that head of yours. I certainly don't. I do wish the HEMA club offered a spear class. I've been thinking of purchasing one."

Raj said, "I've been thinking of getting a practice tulwar."

Sheldon rounded on Raj, finally turning away from the ocelot. "It's Historical European Martial Arts. Not Historical Indo-European Martial Arts. Besides, you hate Indian culture."

"I don't hate Indian culture. Besides, tulwars are super cool."

Sheldon nodded enthusiastically, in the childish way he often had. "They're so choppy."

"Wouldn't it be alright to play with it after class is over."

"Certainly. But who would – Oh, I could spar with you, but you'll have to get a dhal as well to use in your off hand."

"No, I already have a Scottish buckler reproduction. They're pretty much the same."

"I beg to differ," said Sheldon, growing indignant. "Your buckler is boss gripped. Indian dhals are typically strapped."  
"But dhal straps are often so close to each other that both straps can be gripped in one hand, allowing the wielder to use it like a boss gripped buckler, with superior control."

"If you care to use an ahistorical weapon set, you're perfectly welcome to. But I won't be caught dead sparring against you that way."

Raj said, "Couldn't you just tease me mercilessly while sparring with me, proving the superiority of longsword over tulwar and imitation dhal? You usually beat me anyway."  
Sheldon blinked. "That does sound pleasant. Very well, I agree to it, but a probationary run only, to decide if it's worth my time."

Raj nodded.

"I myself have been thinking of purchasing a blunted steel practice longsword, with a finger ring and a side nail for additional hand protection, as well an edged longsword, for test cutting. Perhaps the Albion type 13, from the museum line."

"Aren't those expensive?"

"Quality seldom comes cheap."

"Could I borrow it?"

Sheldon said, "Don't be absurd."

Raj's face fell.

"However, if you were to purchase your own sword for test cutting, of a different type, perhaps a tulwar, so that I could borrow yours while you borrowed mine, that could be arranged. With a written contract."

Raj grinned, and after a little while longer, they finished with the ocelot and moved on to the African savanna area.

#  
#

Penny moved quickly through the exhibits. Cute, ugly, bigger than she'd thought, way bigger than she'd thought. Moving around, not moving around. Close to the edge, far back in the exhibit and hard to see.

It was nice, for the first half hour, and then she wondered what she was doing.

The observation sheets had seemed like some crazy Sheldon thing she'd either ignore or wean him off of, whatever was easier. They were so stupidly, extremely, unmistakably Sheldon.

And yet, his way was better. Simply and clearly better than what people usually did. She'd learned plenty about science from him, and improved her vocabulary too, but she'd never thought learn a behavior from him. Never thought she'd look at one those wacked things he did and decide it was the way to go.

Dammit.

She found Sheldon and Raj at the elephants, a station she'd spent hardly five minutes at, after getting over just how massive they were.

Sheldon spouting facts about elephants while Raj kept recording.

Coming into frame, Penny said, "Give me that," snatching an observation sheet from his hands.

She motioned for Sheldon to hold silence a beat, and when the beat had passed, Penny said, "I can't believe I'm saying this. But you were right. Having this thing makes it better. It gives me something to focus on, gives it meaning. Sorta makes it a game, too. And even though it's sorta tedious, it's relaxing too."

Sheldon grinned his self-satisfied, infuriating grin. "I knew you'd see reason eventually. You're being assimilated, Penny. Resistance is futile."

"Careful, Sheldon. The Borg have Queens. You assimilate me, you'll have to go down on one knee in front of me."

Sheldon jerked back. "You understood a Star Trek reference and expanded on it!"

"Yeah, well, that'll happen if you and Leonard make me watch Star Trek. It's not like it's a hard show to understand."

Sheldon, though affronted, was unsure of how to reply to that, and was distracted from the subject when Penny said she was looking forward to getting over to the Great Apes with him.

#

#

The zoo video went over as well as any, and better than most. In Penny's mind, it firmly established that theirs wasn't a science show – it was an improvisational comedy structured around two main characters. That she was learning science and you could learn it with her was secondary.

And the Channel grew, bringing in thousands of dollars every month. Some of that went to ads and upkeep, and 40% of the rest went to Sheldon, but Penny still found herself making way more off it than she'd ever expected.

Enough to turn over a big decision in her mind.

Sitting stiffly in his spot in her apartment, where he sat when they shot videos, Sheldon said, "Penny. I am aware, to the penny, of how much money you are earning from the Channel. You lack the necessary financial security to quit your job at the Cheesecake Factory."

"Maybe. But I'll sleep more. Besides, I was just in another commercial." She'd held up a blouse and said, 'Yes!' but first she'd had to look very excited. Penny continued, "And Wednesday, I'm a slutty secretary on a cop show. I have five lines, _and _I get killed."

"Delightful," said Sheldon, voice flat. "You'll be accepting that Oscar any day now."

"I'd take any Emmy."

#  
#

On the first Tuesday night after quitting her job, Penny and the boys went to the Cheesecake Factory.

Sliding into their usual seats, Sheldon said, "This is going to be a disaster. It typically takes weeks to break in a new server. Penny, you're absolutely certain that you can't keep working at the Cheesecake Factory just on Tuesday evenings?"

"Yes. But don't worry. I've already talked the waitress who'll be handling our table. She's been here for a couple months, and I've made sure she knows what to do."

A short young woman with locks of curly blonde hair and delicate, elfin features marched up to the table, smiling prettily.

"Hey Bernadette."

"Hey Penny."

Gesturing around the table, Penny said, "This one's trouble, this one's sleaze, and this one can't talk to women without alcohol, but don't worry, they tip well."

"What about the handsome garden gnome?" said Bernadette, gesturing to Leonard.

"He's the sane one," said Penny.

"Hey!"

Bernadette said, "I said you're handsome. I'd take it and smile if I were you, buster."

Ignoring what wasn't important in favor of what was, Sheldon began giving his order.

Bernadette interrupted him. "I know. On the side, on the side, Penny told me, the cooks are ready to get it ready. Next!"

The rest gave their orders, Penny half amused and half concerned. She'd told Bernadette to start out aggressive to put them in their places, but Bernadette had maybe taken it a little too much to heart.

As she was gathering the menus, Howard said, "You know, I'm just the right size for you." Waggling his eyebrows, he said, "I might be the right size for you in other ways as well. What do you say after your shift is up we blow this joint and keep each other wake until morning comes?"

Bernadette smiled. "Do you know at what temperature second degree burns can form?"

Mouth quirking in confusion, Howard said, "About 43 degrees Celsius, with prolonged exposure."

"And did you know that I carry soups and beverages that can be quite a bit hotter than that, and I'm famously a klutz?"

Howard paled. "Noted."

Bernadette smiled pleasantly and stalked off.

Raj whispered in Howard's ear.

Howard said, "That wasn't sexy. That was terrifying."

Sheldon said, "For once, I must agree with Wolowitz. To think that they transport soups and beverages at scalding hot temperatures, and hire famously clumsy waitresses. I'm going to speak to the manager."

Penny said, "No sweetie, that wasn't an informational aside. She was threatening Howard."

"Oh. I see. That's alright then. Penny, I approve of our new waitress. Well done picking her."

#  
#

A minute ago, life had been almost perfect. The Channel was doing better and better, and she was getting a steady diet of small roles. Quitting the Cheesecake Factory a month ago already felt like the best decision of her life.

She was sleeping nine hours a night, and she wasn't having to deal with _customers. _Her stress was way down, and she'd treated herself to a day at the spa.

She had an active social life, including but not limited to her questionably lovable weirdos. She was in-between boyfriends, and though she had a nebulous something bubbling along with Leonard, for the first time since middle-school, she didn't feel like she _needed_ a boyfriend. She was alright just with being Penny.

But then the boys told her they were going to the Arctic. _Sheldon _was going to the Arctic. They sprang the news on her in their apartment and didn't know whether to look excited or apologetic.

"For three months?" Penny said, still shell-shocked, but regaining the power of speech. "And you're leaving Tuesday? That's short notice."

Leonard grinned. "Gotta swing when iron is hot."

"Right." It was shocking how much of her personal and professional life was just getting up and going. Most of it in the form of Sheldon. "But what about…"

Leonard smiled, "I'll be back. Three months isn't that long."

"Right. You're right. I'll wait."

He gave her a hug, and when it was over, Penny gave him a kiss.

Leonard grinned with pleasure, and Penny knew he'd be asking for a send off that night, and Penny still wasn't sure she wanted to give it to him.

She said, "Sheldon, can we do any videos from the Arctic together? Split screen?"

"I will send you status updates, but we won't have the necessary bandwidth for video calling."

Leonard said, "If you're worried about money, TGIF's is hiring."

Sheldon said, "Penny has had speaking parts in 8 commercials, five TV shows, one indie movie, and three made-for-TV movies. I hardly think she needs to return to waitressing."

All small parts — a store clerk in a Lifetime movie, for instance, saying something catty to the lead — and Penny couldn't say her career was taking off, but she could at least say it existed. She'd upgraded from aspiring actress to small-time actress, and it was the most important event in her life

And she'd had no idea that Sheldon had memorized her career. That was like him, of course — he counted everything he saw, and remembered it all, but she hadn't known that he'd ever bothered to notice her parts.

Sheldon continued, "And of course, she's the co-star and showrunner of a popular Youtube Channel that covers such diverse subjects as physics, mathematics, and the discussion of comics, movies, TV shows and video games from a scientific perspective. And one trip to the zoo."

Not diverse subjects, in Penny's view. The Physics of Halo series — which included Sheldon explaining things over footage of them playing, while Penny made sarcastic remarks and blew stuff up — was their single most popular series. The top video had over two-hundred thousand views.

The videos that were already up would keep bringing in some money. But it might be a hard three months. As nice as it was for Sheldon to say she was 'beyond waitressing,' Penny wasn't so sure.

Leonard said, "I'm just saying. In case. It's nice she's started getting roles, but she can't exactly count on it yet. For all she knows, she might not get another role the whole time we're gone."

True or not, Leonard ended right there any chance of getting into her pants before he left.

Penny said, "Sheldon, we have to do another video tonight."

#  
#

Lights, camera, action. Serious scientific printouts around them. A different vibe for a different sort of video.

Penny said, "Dr. Cooper, explain this Arctic Expedition to me."

"We're hoping to find the magnetic monopole; doing so would provide overwhelming evidence for String Theory. First we needed a very sensitive device to..."

Sheldon explained the monopole, in plain language she kinda sorta got, and what it's discovery would mean to String Theory; she got that it would kinda sorta prove String Theory, but didn't get String Theory at all.

Penny had found she could mostly understood Newtonian stuff, if it was explained slowly and patiently and not too abstractly. Atoms, so long as the nucleus stayed in one piece, were alright, if boring. Cosmological stuff was sorta fun. But String Theory had something to do with 'Quantum Field Theory' and getting Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to work together, and those were all just jibber-jabber to her, and she was afraid they always would be.

Penny asked questions, both informed and uninformed, and the video went on, more seriously than normal. Whether she understood what he was saying or not, this was an important chance to strut the fact that her co-star was a serious scientist, doing important, cutting-edge work, and even Sheldon was aiming for dignity.

"Dr. Cooper," she said, near closing. "Aren't you a theoretician? This empirical work isn't up your alley."

"That hardly means I can't do it. But Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, who's a very reliable experimental physicist, is coming along."

Penny raised an eyebrow. That was high praise, coming from Sheldon. "Admitting you need help."

"I don't _need _help. But I do take comfort in knowing that we'll have an experienced experimental physicist along. Someone who knows the ins and outs, as it were, and all the ways an experiment can go wrong, all the little sources of potential error and noise, and sort it all out. I'm sure it will go well."

"And if you don't find the monopole?

"Even if we get don't find the monopole, that's a result in its own way, and worth doing. It means that that equipment isn't sensitive enough, which tells us something about the monopole, or even that the monopole doesn't exist."

"You don't like that idea."

"I'm a scientist, Penny. Just because I don't like an idea doesn't mean it's not true; it's my very purpose in life to face up to the evidence."

#  
#

Three months. Penny had a few videos saved up in reserve, and she could put together enough discarded cuts for two or three high quality 'bloopers' videos, which she hadn't done before, but the Channel would be quiet while Sheldon was gone. If it had only been Sheldon, she would've supplemented it with videos of the others, but the others were going too.

She had money in her account, and poring over her finances suggested she'd survive the three months, so long as she lived frugally and didn't buy shoes and kept getting parts at the same rate she had been.

But if she wasn't making videos, she wanted something else to do. Something to accomplish with all that time other than auditions and the odd role, and going back to waitressing wasn't it.

She had the confidence for an idea she'd long shied away from.

The local community college was near the end of its open enrollment period, and classes at California community colleges were cheaper than those in Nebraska, but Penny still felt felt bound to call up her parents and ask for a little money to help with it. Not that her parents were swimming in green, but a couple hundred for her education was something they could swing. After the mandatory talk about how she was welcome to come back home, tamped down by Penny's reassurances that she'd lately gotten some parts and was making money off Youtube anyway, her mom promised to send the check, and Penny clicked 'enroll.'

Pasadena City Community College was on a quarter system, only 11 weeks long, so she ought to be able to mostly finish the quarter while the boys were gone.

Three classes. Personal Finances, Marketing, and Cinematography. What she needed to know to better run the small business that was her Channel. If she passed them all, she'd be close to her Associate of Arts. And she'd be most of the way to an Associate of Applied Science, focusing in Business. If she got both, if she became a community college graduate twice over, maybe they'd stop ragging on her for her for not having enough education, though Sheldon still put Howard down over 'only having a Masters.'

As she saw them off, the class schedule was sitting in her purse. She hadn't told the boys about it, since she'd hate their response if she failed or dropped out. Leonard kissed her goodbye, and Penny's last words to him were, "Take care of Sheldon, alright?"

#  
#

Two figures in black armor and padding, faces hidden by stiff mesh helmets, moved back and forth across the wide wood floor, circling and feinting. Classes or no, with her boys gone, Penny had more free-time, and spending it getting drunk at dance clubs wasn't half so attractive when she'd promised Leonard she'd wait for him. She was spending some of it on sparring instead.

Ted, her partner, said, "I'm gonna be the choreographer for a movie."

"Uh-huh," said Penny, not pausing, but not hiding her interest either. Ted was good. The best in their HEMA club, regularly getting to the pointy ends of tournaments, and she'd already known he had a background in theater. Who knew how big a deal the movie might be?

"You're an actress, right?"

"I am. I could shoot you my portfolio."

"Do that. I'll pass it on to Casting. Tell them I'd love to have you for the fight scenes. They'll do what they do."

#  
#

Ted's movie wasn't a big deal.

It was a SyFy Channel original movie called _Door from the Past,_ with only one semi-recognizable actor. Low budget, with a compressed shooting schedule, and no shooting locations more than two hours drive away. Penny auditioned for the role of Amazon Queen, and for one of the lesser spots as 'Amazon Warrior.'

To her shock, she got the Queen role. Owing to the fact she could swing a sword, ride a horse, and lasso an escaping townsman. That last really got the director going.

They dyed her hair black, dressed her in spray-painted boob armor with lots of cleavage, put metal bracers on her forearms, and the words 'dominatrix Wonder Woman' were said. But quietly, to avoid copyright infringement.

She didn't want to think about what Howard would say, if he ever saw the movie, but hers was the fourth or fifth biggest part in the movie, easily the biggest part she'd ever had, and Penny went to it with enthusiasm.

Maybe she wasn't the best actress in the world, but she wasn't the worst, either, and she knew how to use a sword, dammit. With Ted's help, she learned how to make it look cool, while still bringing in a skillful realism that wasn't common in sword fighting scenes.

The check she got when shooting was over was the largest she'd ever gotten — not by as much as might be imagined, since there was a lot more money in commercials than in SyFy Channel Original movies, but still — and she paid back her parents for helping her with the classes.

Finals were due to start Monday when she picked up her boys at the airport.

#  
#

Earlier in the day, the boys were not yet home. Their layover was in Washington. But Howard, Raj and Leonard were thrilled to be in civilization once more. They were pigging out on fried chicken and cinnabuns while they awaited their flight to LA.

Sheldon was quiet and withdrawn, as he'd been since Raj had told him about the 'prank' they'd been pulling on him.

Sheldon said, "I wish to clarify that if I did not have a sacred responsibility to my viewers to create a follow up video with Penny, I would be making arrangements to return to Texas."

The three shifted uncomfortably. Leonard said, "Follow up to what?"

"I informed you that Penny and I had shot a video explaining the means and aims of the expedition."

Leonard gulped, took out his laptop, wiped his sugar-frosted fingers on his jacket, and plugged in, connecting to the scratchy Washingtonian wifi.

Finding the video wasn't hard. Watching it was.

In the video, Sheldon said, "I do take comfort in knowing that we'll have an experienced experimental physicist along. Someone who knows the ins and outs, as it were, all the ways an experiment can go wrong, all the little sources of potential error and noise, and sort it out. I'm sure it will go well."

In real life, Sheldon, looked away.

Leonard closed the laptop, wishing the layover were over. That video had 50,000 views. His heart was cold as ice at the thought that Sheldon might spread their prank with the can opener all over the internet.

"Sheldon-"

"I am not speaking to you."

Leonard gulped again.

#  
#

As they approached, the first thing Penny noticed was the beards. Raj, Howard's and Leonard's were big and bushy, but Sheldon's was carefully trimmed. She supposed he'd grown it out to show solidarity with the others, and told them all about it.

Penny was bursting to tell the boys about the massive steps forward in her life while they'd been away, but taking in their long faces as they loaded their gear in the trunk, she decided to wait.

Sheldon folded quietly into the passenger seat, and the other three scrunched into the back seats with hardly any complaining or off-color comments about sausage parties.

Penny was afraid to ask, but after 20 minutes of driving, couldn't restrain herself any longer.

"Negative result?" said Penny.

Sheldon said, "Not even that. Due to… experimental error, we have no result at all, either negative or positive."  
"Oh." The worst case scenario. No wonder the guys were acting like they were at a funeral.

Sheldon especially.

Penny said, "Where should I drop off Raj and Howard?"

"They'll come back to the apartment," Leonard answered. "We have to talk."

"Oh."

They completed the drive in silence. While Raj and Howard transferred their luggage to Leonard's car, Sheldon marched straight up the stairs, not waiting for the others, shoulders slumped.

Penny, unencumbered by luggage, kept up with him, following him into his apartment,

"Later," he said, and went straight into his room, closing the door behind him.

Penny was getting irritated. So the experiment had been a bust. He could at least act like he was happy to see her.

The other three came in moments later, Leonard puffing a little from bringing his luggage up, and he pulled her aside to the edge of the room.

He said, "First, I wanted to give this to you."

In her hands, he put a clear plastic slab with a crystalline pattern.

"Oh boy," she said. A piece of plastic with a design on it. Wowsers. "What is it?"

"It's a snowflake. From the north pole."

She looked with new eyes at the thick piece of plastic, seeing the beauty in the 'design.' "Are you serious?"

"I preserved it in a 1% solution of polyvinyl acetal resin. It'll last forever."

"Oh my god. That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me that I didn't understand." Though she sorta understood. Had a guess, anyway. Plastic. Poly, like polyurethane, which was what she'd coated the wood with when her dad had helped her make a desk, a shelf, and jewelry case, after they'd stained it. And vinyl, like a vinyl record.

He started to explain all sorts of thing she didn't care about, and way too quickly too, and she would've shut him up with a kiss if Raj and Howard hadn't been in the background.

Pulling him close, Penny whispered, "You, Mister, are going to have a nice night." Leonard was getting lucky. Good for him. Good for her. She didn't like going so long without any action. "But have your talk with the others first." And shave too. And shower.

Grinning goofily, Leonard took his accustomed seat, Howard and Raj doing the same, while Penny went over to a window, holding her captured snowflake up to the light.

The boys took seats.

"Well?" said Howard.

Leonard said, "I'll talk to Gablehauser, tell him a short messed up our data."

Howard said, "And if he finds out how the short happened?"

Penny turned toward them, curious.

"I'm working on it, alright. Sheldon won't- Penny, if Sheldon mentions it, why don't you tell him you don't think shooting a follow-up video is a good idea. It'll just make him relive it."

Penny frowned. "We have to shoot a follow-up video."

"You don't _have to. _And I don't think it would be best."

Raj said, "You mean it would make us look bad."

Penny stared. Raj had just spoken. In front of her. She wasn't in his sightline, true, but he knew she was in the room. And he hadn't touched any alcohol.

Raj continued, "I told you to tell him."

"You were laughing too," said Howard.

"For the first couple days. You kept it up for weeks. How am I supposed to spar with him at HEMA on Mondays when he wants to kill me? He'll have a right to kill me."

"So maybe we took it too far. But if Sheldon puts that on Youtube, we're all cooked."

Penny's stomach sank. "What are you guys talking about?"

Rueful and annoyed with himself, but unembarrassed and unworried, Howard said, "There was a can opener with a short in it. Made a magnetic field. Every time we used the can opener, it looked like we'd found the monopole."

"That must've been hilarious," said Penny, and really, Howard was supposed to be alright at recognizing sarcasm. But that time he wasn't. He shrugged, grinning, as her hands curled into fists.

"It was hilarious the first day or two," said Raj, mournfully. "After that, it was like repeatedly kicking the world's most annoying, dictatorial puppy. And we could all lose our jobs over it."

Leonard said, "Guys, don't worry. I'll talk to him, he'll come around. No one will know. And even if they did, it's not really that bad. It was just a prank. Dr. Gablehauser fired Sheldon once. He hates Sheldon. You think he wouldn't see the humor to it? He'd be laughing."

Penny cocked her arm back and threw the plastic slab. The throw of a girl who'd played more baseball than softball, who'd been nicknamed 'Slugger,' and earned it.

Leonard's head went back when the cube his cheek, and it was good for him that it wasn't heavier.

Leonard gaped, the shouted interrogative on his lips, but Penny was quicker and louder and much scarier. "Out!" she shouted, pointing to the door. "You get the hell out!"

"It's my apartment t-"

"It's Sheldon's name on the lease, and you're not sleeping in here tonight! Get out!"  
She advanced on him, red-faced, fists raised.

Fear flashed across Leonard face, and he ran away, right out the door.

Penny rounded on Howard.

"I, I'm going."

He ran after Leonard, and Penny turned to Raj, not looking at him with the same anger, but far from serene and happy.

"So you knew it was wrong, huh? So why didn't you stop it?"

Woman in front of him or no, Raj found his voice. "I told them to stop it."

"But you didn't tell Sheldon. I can understand it for a day or two. It might've been a good prank. But it went on for weeks, you said. And it made the whole trip useless; you have no idea if you found the monopole or not, and I can't even imagine a deeper way of betraying Sheldon. Why didn't you stop it? You're his friend, aren't you?"

"I am," said Raj, gulping, crying.

In his overwrought Raj way, he went to Sheldon's door and collapsed on his knees in front of it. "I'm sorry Sheldon. I should've told you. I'm sorry." And he ran out of the apartment, just as the others had.

Penny locked the apartment door behind him. The imprisoned snowflake had bounced off Leonard's face and into Sheldon's spot. Penny dropped it in the trash, knocked once on Sheldon's door, and entered.

He was lying _facedown _on his bed_, _still wearing his day clothing, minus his shoes, and he said nothing about how people couldn't be in his room.

Sheldon said, "Are they gone?"

"They're gone, Sweetie, and I locked the door." She went out into the hall, grabbed a spare sheet from their linen cupboard, and laid it across the bed next to him. She lay on that, so he wouldn't have to change his sheets, Sheldon watching her but not saying a word.

She said, "Did you hear?"

"The door is not thick."

Penny put an arm over his shoulder. "Is this comforting, or not?" she said.

"It's not intolerable," said Sheldon, which Penny took to be his way of admitting that he did want a little human contact.

Penny knew a lot about comforting friends, after career disasters and bad breakups. Some people wanted silence, and some people wanted talk, and Penny pegged Sheldon for the former.

She was right.

:::  
And you thought the HEMA thing was just to make Sheldon sexy. No. That's only why Penny did it. It's not why I made her do it.

I've expanded the depth of the preserved snowflake item to make it better for throwing. The symbolism doesn't work with something the size of a microscope slide.

I suppose I should discuss my views on characters and relationships.

Throughout the show, Penny becomes sadder and bitterer and more hopeless. Her drinking problems develop. After a long period of approximately 0 success, she gives up on her dream and becomes a pharma rep; it's a job she hates. She likely does unethical things to succeed in it, as I understand is common for pharma reps. Her relationship with Leonard doesn't seem good for either of them. Just maybe clearing the low bar of being the best Penny has ever had. I find Leonard very likable most of the time, but there are other times…

Penny and Sheldon's relationship is easily my favorite in the show, but it works fine as a platonic relationship. This is not Shenny, but it's not not Shenny either. It's tbd, and it will end that way.

Sheldon is my favorite character. He is deeply personal to me. I don't think I empathize with him more than I've ever empathized with a character, but I do identify with him in _ways _I've never identified with another character. I was once a discount rack Sheldon, so I wish very badly that the showrunners had let Sheldon grow up more and more quickly.

Or that's my perspective. I'm sure you have your own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Ch 3**

Lights, camera, action. They were dressed all in black, and Penny had printed out an artist's interpretation of the monopole, put it in a picture frame, and put a black ribbon around the picture's frame, the object clearly in the camera's view.

Penny said, "So it was a short in the electrical system, going off and on, that created the false positives?"

Sheldon nodded, face tight. "Unfortunately, due to the noise, we don't even have a negative result. The Expedition was simply a waste of time and resources."

Penny said, "Wasn't Dr. Leonard Hofstadter supposed to stop things like that from happening?"

Sheldon said, "Leonard is the one who identified the source of the error. And almost from the beginning, he was notably less excited by the results than I was. I allowed my excitement to run away with me. As a seasoned experimental physicist, he knew how much trust to place on those results."

"I see," said Penny. She was still furious. She wanted to drag Leonard like he was a high school girl who'd messed with her boyfriend. But Sheldon was still protecting his friend, and doing it by telling nothing but the truth.

"Of course, in Leonard's lab, such a problem would never have occurred, or would've been more promptly identified, but the conditions we were operating under were far from ideal."

Penny nodded gravely, hoping that this postmortem would save at least some of Sheldon's pride.

That was what she titled the video — The Arctic Expedition: A Postmortem.

#  
#

Leonard, after the one night and most of a day away, returned to his apartment, a dark bruise on his cheek. Penny was in Sheldon's spot on the couch, her laptop set up on the coffee table.

They looked away from each other at first, but information needed to be exchanged.

Leonard said, "Where's Sheldon?"

"In his room."

"And you're-"  
"I'm here for him." The new video was already posted, and Penny was applying for roles as she waited.

Leonard nodded and wandered through the apartment, pacing.

When he wasn't looking, Penny went to the trash, dug out the plastic slab with the snowflake inside, snuck with it into the bathroom, washed it off in the sink, and returned it to him.

"Here," she said, feeling snarky and cold. "Have this to remember the Expedition by."

He pocketed it with a mumbled thanks, and Penny felt bad for saying it how she had. She realized there still was a strong friendship between them, or would be in a few days, when the floodwaters of her anger had receded.

Soon, but not yet, she'd ask him to explain, though it was easy enough to guess. Penny was amused by a lot of Sheldon's Sheldonness, and she could knock him down easily enough, but even for her, Sheldon was one of the most aggravating people she'd ever met.

For the boys, it was a lot worse, and had surely been much worse than usual, alone, in the Arctic, stuck with each other, far away from Sheldon's pacifying routines.

That didn't excuse what they did, but they hadn't realized what they were doing. Hadn't thought through the implications, considered what it would mean beyond the confines of that small, claustrophobic shelter in the Arctic white.

Maybe she'd over-reacted. Leonard had deserved the yelling, but not the throwing. Not the violence, and not her attempt to drag him on Youtube.

She said, "There's something you should see."

She led Leonard to the couch and pulled the video up on her laptop.

Penny watched Leonard, not the video. Saw the fear when the Nebraska Barbie brought him up. The relief when the Wackadoodle defended him, omitted what Leonard had done, and made him sound like the competent, sober scientist in the scenario. And she saw the growing guilt in his eyes.

Leonard said, "Is he ready to talk?"

"How should I know?"

"You're the Sheldon whisperer."

Penny pointed to Sheldon's bedroom door. "Knock and ask him."

Leonard knocked, and spoke softly, and Sheldon replied. He opened the door part way, and they talked in the threshold. She couldn't hear them clearly, but from the sounds of it, while Leonard was bringing up the expected excuses about how nuts Sheldon had driven them, that wasn't all he was saying.

Penny put on earphones to give them the illusion of privacy, though she didn't actually play any music through the earphones.

Penny looked beneath the video, at the comments, and her breath caught.

As Leonard and Sheldon talked, she busied herself, clicking and removing and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

She sloughed off the headphones when Sheldon, taking confidence in Raj's apology and Penny taking his side, said, "Leonard, you're taking responsibility."

"What?" said Leonard.

Penny turned to face them.

Sheldon said, "I won't ask you to fall on your sword. I'm aware that you'd lose your job and have great difficulty in finding another if what actually happened were documented. But you still must take responsibility."

Jaw tight, Leonard said, "You want me to claim honest error?"

"That would be a way of claiming responsibility. It wasn't my fault, and I won't let anyone think it was."

"Sheldon, I could lose my grants. My funding. I need grants and funding to buy equipment and run experiments. All you need is your mind and a whiteboard. Think about the good of physics."

"I hardly think your derivative experiments make any difference to the good of physics."

Penny piped up. "I don't know anything about grants or funding. But you can't let Sheldon take the fall for what you did to him. If you do, your apology doesn't mean anything."

"Fine," said Leonard. "I'll write a letter to Dr. Gablehauser. I'll make it all my mistake. Happy?"

"It's an important first step."

"Well what else do you want?"

"I'm considering it. There are so many things I might ask for."

Leonard said, "Sheldon, this is an apology, not a chance to for you extract concessions in the roommate agreement."

Penny sloughed off her headphones and caught his arm. "Saying sorry isn't enough. You need to make it up to him."

"I'm writing that letter."

"That just means you're not going to screw him over all the way. That doesn't make up for screwing him over part of the way."

"Fine. Alright. I'll be in my room. Thinking about it."

He slammed his bedroom door behind him, and Penny wondered how sorry he really was, or if he was just afraid of Sheldon telling their boss the whole story.

Before Sheldon could close his own door, Penny said, "You can't hole up in there forever, Sweetie. I've got something to show you."

He came cautiously out, and sat at his spot.

"You should look at those," said Penny, in regards to the video comments.

Youtube comments were not, in general, a place to find wisdom. Their Channel was better than most, but not great.

But while there'd been plenty of trollish comments to delete, and harsh, tone death criticisms and pretentious advice columns that she couldn't justify deleting, those comments were far, far outnumbered by empathetic ones. By people telling their own stories of disasters at their jobs. People from all walks of life. Teachers, Doctors, business people, soldiers, students. Scientists and engineers.

Sheldon read, and comment by comment, the tension in his shoulders faded.

#  
#

With Sheldon feeling better, Penny brought out a green hoodie and showed it to him.

It had _NBW__D _in a plain, Arial font that had been aggressively frilled. Nebraska Barbie (and the) WackaDoodle. The front zipped, and had two silhouettes. One of her and one of him, both stylized. When you zipped it up, they got close together, and if you looked carefully, you saw that the white space suggested a heart. Penny hadn't liked that idea, but it was what the designer for the silkscreener had come up with.

Presenting it to Sheldon, Penny said, "It's a hoodie. From the Channel. We're contracting with a silkscreener, and we get eight bucks for every hoodie sold."

"Excellent," said Sheldon. "You've washed this?"

"I have."

He put it on. "It's so soft." He shimmied. "Have we sold many?"

"Just a few, but once we get the Channel back going, hopefully it'll really take off. "

"Excellent," he said again. "I am available to shoot a video tonight. I am not due back at the college for a week, and I have been thinking of taking a sabbatical."

Penny said, "Thanks, but I have to study for my final."

"Your final?" said Sheldon. "You're taking a class?"

"Three. At the local JC. It's not much, but I thought it would help, and-"

"It's wonderful," said Sheldon. "I'm thrilled you're pursuing your education. It's been vicariously painful, being so often around someone so uneducated."

Ah. Sheldon. Pissing her off even in the midst of sincere pleasure.

He said, "What classes are you taking?"

"Personal Finances, Marketing, and Cinematography."

"Oh," said Sheldon. "Better than nothing, I suppose."

"I'm learning a lot."

"I'm sure you are. But there can't be much to learn. Personal Finances, for instance, can hardly be more than basic math. Do they have anything more complicated than compound interest with the natural log? I doubt it. That's not _real _math. Just punching symbols into a calculator."

The math in Personal Finances was kicking her ass, especially calculating interest rates, but she ignored that.

Penny said, "I also got a part in a SyFy original movie. Shooting's all done. It's called _Door from the Past_. The idea is that going back in time is impossible, but everyone goes forward in time, all the time. And it's possible to go forward faster. There's this secret government particle collider under a small town in Idaho, and all these temporal gates form, and all these people and missing armies from throughout history come through them. And animals too. But not a lot, because we don't have the budget for good CGI mammoths. In the end they all have to band together to close the temporal gates before they move far enough back in time to let the Yellowstone Supervolcano explosion come through."

Sheldon said, "That's surprisingly not completely implausible, by SyFy original movie standards."

"I'm the Amazon Queen. It's a pretty big role. Or it could be, depending on how the editing goes. It'll premier on TV for too long." SyFy's post-production process was less than exhaustive.

"However, I assure you that the US government is highly unlikely to have any colliders capable of anything the Large Hadron Collider isn't capable of. And the term temporal rift is quite overused — it's often unclear what it means. And extinct diseases our modern immune systems might be unprepared for would be a bigger global threat than backwash from an ancient volcanic eruption.

Penny said, "Aren't you going to congratulate me on the biggest role of my life?"

His mouth opened and closed as he realized he should've. "Congratulations, Penny. I'm not sure- We can do whatever you want. We can even eat whatever you want. And I'll buy. Even though you should pay, since you got a more substantial that normal part. Though it is only a SyFy Original Movie."

Penny wished she had another plastic slab to throw. "I understand why Leonard and Howard snapped."

Sheldon paled, and Penny immediately regretted it. But not completely.

"You think I deserved it."

"No. But you're more than tactless and unaware. You're thoughtless and mean. And condescending and cocky. And that's why they did what they did. It doesn't make it okay, but it is the reason."

Sheldon said, "I tell the truth.

Penny said, "Lots of things are true. You don't say all of them. You choose which ones to say."

"I say the truths that are relevant."

He was such a kid. "Is the point of talking to blurt out whatever you think is true and 'relevant,' or is to communicate? Because sweetie, no one listens when they feel insulted. No matter how true it is."

"They should."

"They don't. You're the one who told me that scientists need to face up to the evidence, whether they like it or not."

He was silent, and Penny knew that had got to him. The accusation that his personal habits didn't follow his ideals. "Sheldon, I love that you're honest and straightforward and never pretend, but it would be good if you had a better idea of what made people feel bad, so you could choose not to make them feel bad if you didn't want to. Like I don't think you wanted to make me feel bad just now, wanted to make me feel so small, like what I did isn't worth anything. But you sure as hell did. And if you could just be polite with strangers, that would help. That's all."

Penny didn't suppose there was anything to say about him being a twitchy, neurotic mess when his routines were broken, or his warped view of reality.  
Sheldon nodded, lips pressed together in a hard line, and Penny felt guilty for laying all that on him when he was still hurting.

It was a long time until she realized what an impact it made.

#

#

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

She opened the door, saw how nervously he was shifting from foot to foot, how he was refusing to meet her gaze, and ushered him in.

Taking his seat, Sheldon said, "First, it seems that I may have been insufficiently enthusiastic and supportive on hearing of your recent accomplishments. Congratulations."

"Is this an apology?"

He grimaced, and seemed to need a physical effort to say, "My apologies."

Penny waited for the next part, the part where he'd make it her fault, saying he was sorry she needed more support, or sorry she'd been offended. But it didn't come. Just a single, stiff, 'my apologies.'

His eyes unusually intense, Sheldon said, "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"The friendly banter between Koothrapali, Wolowitz and Leonard has always consisted largely of 'burns.' Often, 'sick burns.' These 'burns' are often directed at me as well. I have endeavored to learn to deliver 'burns' of my own. I have looked upon my success in this endeavor as a major social advancement. Is that not the case?"

Penny's heart flopped. Not so much because he was lost and worried, but because he was being vulnerable with her.

Sheldon seemed freakishly arrogant, and though Leonard had never cottoned onto it, Penny had realized early on that part of that was his way of making a joke. But most of it was completely genuine.

But she wasn't at all surprised to see, had long assumed, that hidden by that genuine arrogance, was deep, deep insecurity, and he was showing it to her. Baring it to her.

Penny said, "That's probably true. But 'burns' aren't always appropriate. I think guys do it more than girls. And even then, it's usually only with people you're already friends with. And even with people you're friends with, there are limits. It can get mean, and it shouldn't."

"Oh," said Sheldon.

He looked as she had when, flush on the triumph of solving for the formula of a line, Sheldon had shown her calculus. On the threshold of despair, faced with something that seemed as if it would always be beyond her.

Sheldon continued, "I have difficulty distinguishing between the witty banter of my social group, and what I believe to be the genuine dislike of, say, Leslie Winkle. With Leonard, Koothrapali, and Wolowitz, how am I to determine what is appropriate burns and ribbing, and what is, as you said, 'mean?'"

Rather than flopping, Penny's heart seized up. She'd told herself she'd called a friend out on bad behavior, but now she felt as if she'd found a puppy that had been taught to chew the furniture, and had kicked it for doing so. Or more accurately, she'd found a man as a dumb in one way as he was brilliant in another, and punched him hard in the feels. Gone right after his insecurities, told him the best coping mechanism he'd ever learned was just him being mean.

The insults he'd given her over the years? How many had been his attempt at being friendly? Not all of them, but not none of them either. Penny said, "That 'constant burns' sort of friendship isn't something girls usually do as much. I'm not an expert on it."

"You engage in it."

"I fight off Howard, and I go toe-to-toe with you. I joke with Leonard. I don't know a ton about guy friendships. So I don't know how much I can help you. But maybe you could be less aggressive, and time it better. If someone's having a bad day, they're in a bad mood, they're opening, open, you shouldn't do it then. Try to figure out when people want support, not burns. That shouldn't be that hard to figure out. I'll help you. We'll put together some rules of thumb. And maybe it wouldn't be bad to diversify a little. To not be always going after them for intelligence."

Sheldon said, "What would I hold over them, if not my superior intelligence?"

"Raj can't talk to women, still can't even talk to me, and Howard creeps out anything female between the age of 15 and 50. And he lives with his mother."

Sheldon said, "The others burn Howard over living with his mother, but I do not wish to. Based on two comments he has made, I believe that though she locomotes around the house alright, she is not entirely well and needs assistance. That he lives with her, a state he professes to dislike, despite being able to afford otherwise, is nearly the only thing I respect about Wolowitz."

"Oh..." said Penny.

"You mentioned heuristics? Rules of thumb?"

"Well, if you're talking to someone, and their face moves like this," she grimaced, "you probably shouldn't've said what you just said."

"Make that expression again," said Sheldon.

Penny made it again.

"I see."

"And this is more subtle," said Penny, doing it mostly just with her eyes, and a slight tightening of her lips.

"What's more subtle?"

"This is," she said, doing it again.

"What's 'this?'"

"This."

Sheldon said, "You're not doing anything. You're simply staring at me blankly."

She whipped out her compact to check to be sure she was doing it right, and she clearly was. "See, like this. You see how my lips tighten and my jaw drops a tiny bit?"

"Do it again."

She did it again.  
"I do see. That's positively minute. You're claiming that people notice movements that small, and correctly interpret them? I find that hard to credit."

"Most people don't think about them, but they do see them. But this might be more obvious." She moved her arm in particular fashion. "This means I'm angry, but holding it in."

"Moving your arm?"

"No. See the rotation on my elbow, and how I bring my shoulder in? Yeah. See? Howard does this all the time when you insult him."

"He flaps his arm like a gangly bird?"

"No. Look." She moved her arm. "See that?" She moved it again. "And see how the second time it was angry."  
Sheldon blinked. "How do you know all this?"

"Acting lessons. Micro expressions and body language."

"Well, there's more to be learned than I anticipated." He headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To fetch a notebook and pen. So I can take notes."

It was the weirdest acting exercise Penny had ever done. Demonstrating multiple ways to signal different emotions, some subtle, some less, and discussing 'appropriate responses,' with Sheldon.

She doubted anyone had ever done anything like it with him before, and the quick sketches he drew, while not detailed, were eerily exact.

#  
#

For a few strange days, Penny didn't see much of Leonard, Howard or Raj, and when she did see Leonard, they hardly talked.

She saw Sheldon plenty, and that was great — she'd missed the big dork — but something more precious than she'd realized was in danger of being lost with the other three.

She was relieved when a summit was arranged. Penny, Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj. The usual group. The first time they'd all seen each other since Penny had blown her gasket. They sat awkwardly in their usual spots, sipping cool beverages, the mood tense.

"I'm sorry," said Howard, "For messing up the experiment. I regret that. What I should've done was fixed the can opener and started sending you false results just on the computer, while keeping the real results. Then we still would've had the experiment conducted alright."

"I see," said Sheldon, stiff. "That would've been better. We would've completed the experiment. And you would still have gotten your chance to laugh at me." He twitched.

"It wasn't about laughing at you," said Howard. "It was damned funny, but that wasn't what it was about. I was defending myself. It'd been weeks, and we hadn't seen any sign of the monopole. We were all getting convinced that it either doesn't exist or our equipment wasn't sensitive enough. And you were going nuts, more than normal, ordering us all around, and who was taking the worst of it? Me. Because I'm an _engineer _and I don't have a _doctorate, _it was obviously my fault. My stupidity spreading out like a cloud to scare the monopoles away. Sheldon, when you're not being a bully, you're a lot of fun and I almost like you, but you're a bully way too often, and I'm your favorite target, and you had nothing to do up there but pick on me, so I did what I needed to do to make you lay off. So no. I'm not sorry."

Sheldon would've gotten up and marched to his room if Penny hadn't given him a pleading look.

He swallowed, and, as if it pained him greatly, Sheldon said, "I'm sorry if you felt offended."

"But not sorry for being an absolute pain in the ass every minute of every day."

"I can hardly be held responsible for you interpret my words. However," he grimaced. "I apologize for my lack of sensitivity in my interactions with you, provided that you apologize for any intention to falsely make me believe that I'd proven String Theory."

Howard said, "Lack of sensitivity? You mean saying I'm stupid all the time."

"Wolowitz, I don't think you're stupid. You're only less intelligent than I am, which is nothing to feel bad about, nearly everyone is. Honestly. To call someone stupid, they'd have to have an IQ at least a standard deviation below the mean. Yours, I assume, is above that."

"You assume?"  
"Wolowitz, I don't wish to judge. I'm sure that many people of well-below the mean intelligence work hard, study hard, and become successful engineers."

"And there you are on engineers again, going on about how inferior they are. As if you'd last a day without us."

Attempting diplomacy, Sheldon said, "Wolowitz, I won't deny that engineers are utterly necessary. Without them, the whole system of science would fail. In that sole respect, they might be accounted as equal to theoreticians. But they are not the only necessary part, and every part's value is measured by its replaceability. If needed, the government could round up art majors, send them to camps, and train the better half of them up into serviceable engineers within a few years. The same cannot be said of theoreticians."

Howard said, "If every theoretician in the world gave up science to take up minecraft, the world would keep on chugging. Experimentalists and engineers would keep turning out advancements, if at a slower rate. But if every engineer took up minecraft, you'd get that zombie apocalypse before the art majors could be trained."

The two glared, and before Sheldon could raise his volume in his rebuttal, Penny said, "What about English majors?"

Howard sighed. He and Sheldon exchanged looks. It was Howard who spoke. "Penny, it's true that a strong minority of Art Majors would make respectable engineers. We respect Art Majors. A lot of them have high degrees of technical knowledge and hands-on skill and were in band with us. But English majors? Business majors? Sociologists?" He snickered.

Penny said, "And actors?"  
Howard snicker graduated to a snigger, and Sheldon laughed his weird, breathy laugh.

"What about Christopher Lee?" said Leonard.

"That's different," said Sheldon. "Sir Christopher Lee could accomplish whatever he set his mind to. As could Leonard Nimoy. In any population, you will find exceptional individuals, but overall, it's like prospecting for gold in a limestone deposit."

Howard nodded, and Penny mimed wanting to choke him, only Leonard looking as if he understood the motion. She said, "You lost half your right to complain, right there."

"What?" said Howard.

She threw her hands up.

Raj whispered in Howard's ear. Howard said, "Oh."

Sheldon said, "I see where this is going. Very well. I will make an attempt to cease pointing out your intellectual deficiencies, and even to cease assuming, without strong evidence, that you have them."

Howard's jaw was tight, but figuring that was the best he'd get, he said, "Fine. Sorry for the Arctic and all. I shouldn't have done that. At all."

Sheldon said, "Yes, you shouldn't have. And you should've told me about it before I sent an email detailing our preliminary findings." He turned to Leonard. "You've already apologized extensively. However, I understand that it was your idea originally. I believe you have a letter to show me."

Leonard pulled a manila envelope from his jacket pocket, opened it, and gave the letter to Sheldon.

Sheldon quickly read the letter. "I see you were scrupulous in painting a highly deceptive image of what happened without actually contradicting the truth."

Leonard shrugged.

Sheldon read an excerpt aloud. "_Dr. Cooper was heavily preoccupied with analysis of the data. Communication was poor on our part, and I failed to communicate __my__ reservations regarding the data's accuracy, __even projecting a false confidence that I believed would be beneficial to our mental states in the difficult Arctic conditions.__"_

"Mmhmm."

"It's acceptable. And co-signed by Wolowitz, I see. You may send a copy to Dr. Gablehauser, and post another to the interdepartmental website."

"Right," aid Leonard, looking resigned.

Sheldon turned to Raj.

Raj pointed to himself, full of questions, clearly asking what he had done.

Sheldon said, "You apologized first, and under the least duress, and are, from what I understand, least culpable, but I still expect some form of redress. You, like the others, owe me 10 hours of your telescope or supercomputer time, at my request, for whatever I like."

Howard said, "But that's-"

"A great idea," said Penny brightly. "Probably a lot less than you should all have to do."

The guys agreed with half-hearted grumbles, and Penny thought they were secretly relieved that it was ending so painlessly.

Sheldon said, "Leonard, you are no longer my best friend. Penny has moved ahead of you. You're number 2. Koothrapali, you've been upgraded from treasured acquaintance to friend. I will henceforth refer to you as 'Raj.' Wolowitz, you've been downgraded to 'treasured acquaintance.' I will, however, make an attempt to not upend your view of polite behavior. Penny, congratulations. This is an updated version of the friendship contract, modified to reflect our strengthened relationship. I expect you to sign it by the end of the night. Any questions? No. Good. It's vintage game night, and I'm in the mood for original Mario Kart."

#  
#

Even after the summit, there was a residual awkwardness, a feeling on Penny and Sheldon's part that apologies so forced couldn't be good apologies at all.

So it was a relief when Leonard told her about the party, being thrown with the oh-so convincing excuse of it being the half-anniversary of Sheldon receiving his first doctorate. The guys were putting together a roster of everything Sheldon loved, and inviting everyone Sheldon knew and got along with alright, which wasn't a lot of people past the three boys, Penny and Stuart so they were flying in Missy, Sheldon's twin sister as well.

"Well that'll be nice. I'm glad you guys are making it up to him."

Leonard grinned. "It's his half-doctoral anniversary. What else are we going to do?"

#  
#

Sheldon, of course didn't leave it to them. With half an hour still from when Raj and Howard were supposed to show up to help, Leonard and Penny got working, and Sheldon supervised them setting up the laser maze.

They were quiet, and Penny wished she could just talk to Leonard like she used to, that the ice wasn't so thick, and so quick to reform once broken.

"So," said Leonard, awkwardly. "Sheldon tells me you've gone back to school."

"Just part-time. Three classes."

"How'd you do?"

"One C and two B's," Penny said quickly. She'd just gotten her grades back, and she was pleased. Proud. She'd passed every class, and that was nine credits right there. But the guys… She'd never admit to any of them how much time she'd had to spend with tutors in the writing center after she'd gotten her grade for her first essay. How much time she'd spent doing homework or studying on set during the shooting of _Door from the Past_.

"Good," said Leonard. "I'm proud of you. You're taking a lot of positive steps with your life lately."

"Yes," said Sheldon, "Good. Well done." A muscle in his jaw jerked.

Penny said, "You can say it, Sheldon. I wish I'd gotten better grades too."

"No. I've chosen not to say it, because I am a mature and sophisticated individual with a well-developed sense of discretion and restraint. Though I am sure-" He paused. Frowned. "You know, this is more strenuous than I expected."

Visibly thinking, Sheldon went to the whiteboard and started writing.

Penny moved to see around him.

_ You didn't fail any classes. That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, of course. I've never gotten a C in my life, and only a few B's, due to __envious__ teachers who didn't __appreciate__ my correcting their tests or d__evising__ projects more interesting than those they had planned. But-"_

Sheldon stopped and erased, then added a little more, leaving himself with. _That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes. If you work harder, or take __on __additional__ activities known to modestly boo__s__t intelligence, you'll __likely __do better._

He erased and replaced the last sentence, leaving himself with _That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes. __As you learn more, and re-accustom yourself to being a student, developing your study skills, you should do even better._

Nodding to himself, he turned to Penny and said, "That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes, and you got two B's besides. As you learn more, and re-accustom yourself to being a student, developing your study skills, you should do even better."

With the strange mixture of exasperation, disbelief and fondness that only Sheldon could evoke, Penny gave him two thumbs up. She exchanged a familiar look with Leonard, but her grin was by far the brighter. She hadn't thought he'd try so hard, not nearly.

Sheldon smirked, pleased that he'd pulled it off.

#

It went well, and Penny had Missy to talk to. Raj still couldn't speak to her, and Howard offered to show her all the most exciting places in Pasadena, starting with his bedroom, but Missy Cooper had been creeped on by scarier men than Howard Wolowitz, and she handled him with aplomb.

And Sheldon, reading from cue cards, extended his own olive branches.

"Raj, as a reward for your comparative loyalty, I'll allow you to work for me. I'm embarking on a study of dark matter, and I could make use of an astrophysicist." He smiled unconvincingly as he delivered the compliment, "A fine astrophysicist such as yourself."

Raj blinked and couldn't respond with Penny and Missy both in view, and Sheldon moved onto Howard.

He said, "Ah, Mr. Wolowitz. You should go for your Doctorate. I'm sure you could do it. You work at a University, so it's not as if there'd be a commute. And whenever there's something you don't understand, I'll be happy to explain it to you."

"Bite me," said Howard.

Sheldon said, "Penny. Penny did you hear that? I didn't suggest he was stupid this time. I was careful. I did everything right, and he's still in a huff."

"You were fine until the last sentence."

"What was wrong with the last sentence?"

"You made it sound like anything he doesn't understand, you obviously do."

"But that's true. I'm smarter than he is, and I have doctorate. Howard knows that. Penny, you're not making any sense."

"You could've said, 'I'd be happy to help any way I can.'"

"In this context, that's the same thing."

"No, it isn't. Just, take that for data. It's not the same."

"Oh, alright. I'll accept that statement provisionally, but don't think I'll just keep on doing that. As a data gathering instrument, I haven't seen good evidence that you work."

He caught up to Howard, who'd moved a few steps away. "Mr. Wolowitz, let me try that again. I believe you should attempt to attain your doctorate. It would make it much easier for me to treat you politely. I'm sure you could do it — just look at Dr. Gablehauser. If he can get a doctorate, you can too, and you work at a University, so it's not as if there'd be a commute. And I'd be happy to help in any way I could."

Penny gave Howard a meaningful look, and Howard said, "You know, it's actually not bad to hear you say that."

Sheldon said, "And it would be even nicer to hear me call you Dr. Wolowitz, I'm sure."

"It would," Howard agreed. "But what would be nicest would be to hear you say that my not having a Doctorate doesn't make my contributions any less, and having a doctorate wouldn't make those same contributions any better."

"Of course not," said Sheldon. "But if you had a Doctorate, you'd make better contributions. Different ones."

"Prove that to me mechanistically," Howard challenged.

"It stands to reason."  
"Mm-hmm," said Howard, skeptical.

"You would have more education. You'd know more, and obviously if you knew more, you'd be able to achieve more in the field of scientific endeavor."

"And you know that a classroom isn't the only place a person can learn."

Penny was ready to drag Sheldon away before it could get bad, but it was actually an oddly civil debate.

Maybe she was mothering him too much. She'd been forgetting that he'd had friends and a successful career long before meeting her.

"I certainly learn outside the classroom," Sheldon said. "But lesser minds are often incapable of that."

"Sheldon!"

#  
#

Leonard ought to know it was over with Penny.

In another universe, where Penny hadn't started doing those videos with Sheldon, and wouldn't have had the first idea about how science worked as an institution, or known anything about the experiment, Leonard might've been able to pass it off as a harmless prank that got taken a little too far, and then went wrong. Might've given her the impression that they'd gotten a bit carried away, but it wasn't that bad, really, and Sheldon was being a drama Queen.

But in the universe Leonard lived in, that was impossible. Penny didn't _really_ get what a monopole was, but she understood very well that Leonard had screwed one of her best friends over. Monumentally. That said friend was supposedly Leonard's own best friend only made it worse.

That he had, in the process, screwed himself over by ensuring the failure of an experiment that might've transformed his career made it worse still.

But, in the heart of Leonard Hofstadter, hope sprang eternal.

Though there was another, more surprising emotion alongside it.

Leonard was jealous. Of Sheldon, sure. But more oddly, of Penny.

When he'd first become friends with Sheldon, it'd been a matter of convenience. They'd been roommates, and when his job at Cal Tech had started, he'd discovered Sheldon was higher on the totem pole than he was. Then he'd gotten used to him, and they'd had a lot of similar interests, and Sheldon was _fun _when he wasn't being too much of a nut, and a weird fondness had grown, like mold. And it wasn't like Leonard had had a lot of friends before.

But somewhere in it, without realizing it, he'd really become close with Sheldon. And he hated that Penny had supplanted him as Sheldon's best friend.

So why had he done that? Why had he screwed Sheldon over?

He didn't want to know the answer.

:::

In the first two chapters, Penny learned from Sheldon. Here, we see him learning from her.

Are the guys getting off too easily? Maybe. But Sheldon is also getting off easily. All he had to do was commit to not insulting people as much and maybe change his worldview a bit.

In the final few seasons, none of the characters seem to really be happy in their marriages. It's a show about dysfunctional people in toxic relationships they don't leave because there are good moments, and because they're terrified of being alone, and, in some cases, because they view marriage as being, fundamentally, a permanent guarantee of access to sex. The 'big bang theory,' as it were.

That is not the marriages' fault. A marriage can make a happy person miserable or happier, depending on its quality, but I doubt very much that it can make a miserable person happy. All the characters will have to grow.

I think it's non-ideal for your husband/wife to not be the person you're emotionally closest to, but it sure as heck isn't healthy for your husband/wife to be the only person you have any emotional vulnerability with, to be the one person you lay everything on. That would imply that Sheldon, Leonard, Raj and Howard need to learn how to be vulnerable and open with each other, which, well...

This is going to take some doing.


	4. Chapter 4

Following his humiliation, ameliorated by not undone by the letter, Sheldon got busy. He went through his ideas drawer and rapidly expanded them into legitimate papers, a broader, more varied spectrum than his usual. A few were even testable, though Sheldon had no intention of ever again being deeply involved in conducting an experiment.

Returning to Cal Tech, he received the expected ridicule from Kripke, Leslie Winkle, and others, but Sheldon was long practiced at ignoring ridicule when he had no ready defense, so he put his hand down and worked on getting his paper through.

Then came the new semester, and he, unfortunately, had a class to teach.

#  
#

Dr. Cooper only taught graduate level classes, and had not yet been accounted a horrible lecturer. If you couldn't think in math, you were shit out of luck, but most Cal Tech physics grad students could. His explanations were precise and logical, though if you'd shirked on the required work and reading, you'd likely be lost. He knew the material backward and forward, and his odd ways of looking at it were, occasionally, genuinely enlightening. He had a strange, twitchy charisma as a speaker, and he was funny besides, though no one could tell if or when he was funny on purpose.

Still, he went too quickly, and he gave students a strict quota for the maximum number of questions they could ask. Those few questions that were asked were sometimes answered with great cheer, and sometimes with great condescension.

He'd changed.

It had been gradual. Creating firmer bridges between concepts. Patience with questions. A tendency to supplement mathematics and jargon with conceptual explanations.

Then he'd been gone the whole next semester, off doing a research project. After three months, word of the disaster, of eureka first confidently declared, then quickly found to be only a false positive, filtered down to the grad students.

Shortly thereafter, the video came out.

Nebraska Barbie and the Wackadoodle was no new discovery. The grad students spent a lot of time watching physics videos, and it didn't take them long to notice a new channel run by one of their very own professors. Granted, the videos were clearly targeted at undergrad English majors aiming to pass a watered down intro class and at lay people aiming to improve themselves, but that didn't stop Youtube from suggesting them.

On seeing the Channel, the first reaction from most students was to wonder whether Dr. Cooper was getting it on with the smoking hot blonde. The second reaction was morbid fascination at the very idea that Dr. Cooper was making light-hearted, low-level science education videos.

Following that came the dawning realization that Dr. Cooper was funnier in the videos than in real life. That he could be funnier at will indicated that at least some of the crazy shit he said wasn't just him being himself; it was a sense of humor.

He'd been strangely coquettish when the subject of the Channel was brought up in class, fidgeting and clasping his hands and letting out a strange, gasping laugh.

But the video after the Arctic Expedition was different. The Postmortem. It brought sympathy and understanding, and in later years, it would be used, to the lasting discomfort of all involved, of everyone who knew just how much it elided, as an example of a great physicist honestly confronting failure.

When the new semester started, those who didn't already know were clued in by the rest, and the first class, a course on String Theory, had a strange atmosphere.

Dr. Cooper moved efficiently through the course syllabus. Following that, he gave a general lecture on String Theory that left the class gaping. It didn't contain any grand breakthroughs or new science, or much that they weren't already familiar with.

It was an overwhelmingly concise and clear explanation of the state of String Theory. The key suppositions, the deep uncertainties, the odd way in which it both had great explanatory power yet lacked predictive power.

String Theory wasn't like the Theory of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. Those were well-tested. Though manifestly incomplete, it was hard to imagine that they weren't basically correct. They would either be amended or be replaced by more precise and fundamental expressions of the same ideas.

String Theory, however, was an educated guess. It might provide the long sought Theory of Everything, or it might prove to be wrong entirely, and only ever be brought up again when discussing the history of science.

Dr. Cooper made the students want to believe it was right. How could anything so damn pretty and so damn weird not be right?

Unknown to any of them, it was the lecture he'd been turning over and over in his mind in hopes of giving it to Penny years hence, though he supposed she'd always need more of the math stripped out than the graduate students did.

When one of the students approached him after class, haltingly saying that everyone was rooting for him, Sheldon as best he could and said, "Thank you, Miss Martinez. Your moral support, while wholly unnecessary, is appreciated."

#  
#

"Uh-huh," said Penny, speaking into the phone, her expression pinched. "Right. Yeah. I'll be there. Definitely. Thank you so much. For the opportunity. I hope so too. Uh-huh. Thanks so much again. Good-b-"

The call cut off and Penny stared at her cell phone before sinking into her couch.

It was nothing surprising. Nothing that she hadn't known was coming. But still.

The months since shooting _Door from the Past _had been decent for Penny. She'd gotten a few more roles, smaller than that one. Two of them had involved swords, and another had involved punching.

Penny hadn't ever imagined action as her specialty, but she could deal with it.

In addition to her regular acting classes, she signed up for a weekly MMA class, and she haunted the HEMA studio until she felt suitably familiar with a broad range of weapons. The roles were building her savings, and expanding her wardrobe, and her DVD and shoe collections. The Channel was paying the bills.

The series on optics ran to 43 parts. 43. She'd been thrilled to stop thinking about light and spend several breezy episodes castigating the disastrous physics of the Iron Man movie instead. Penny had at least gotten so she understood that no matter how invincible the tin can you were in was, stopping as suddenly as Iron Man did in his fight scenes ought to kill Tony Stark, and it was a little strange to have to ask Sheldon questions she'd known the answer too even before they started shooting on the first take video.

The dynamic between them had been really successful, but if she froze it in time even though it didn't make sense anymore, it would get stale. She was slowly figuring out how to let it grow without losing what made it good.

She was even enrolled in two classes, one online. Video Editing and Small Business Management. She was busy as hell, but it felt good.

And _Door from the Past _would be premiering on the SyFy Channel next Thursday. Hardly a big deal. Just a SyFy Channel original movie. Just Penny on national television in one of the major roles.

Ho Boy.

#  
#

Penny, as usual, didn't knock before entering the guys' apartment. Entering, both guys were busy at their boards, looking up when she entered.

Penny said, "Sheldon, I need to talk to you."

"I'm right here. I hear you clearly."

"Alone, Sheldon."

"Oh," said Sheldon, intrigued. "A private business dealing, is it?"

"Just come out into the hall with me."

"A moment Penny. I need to finish this thought."

Penny watched, arms folded, as he stared his board for a solid five minutes before nodding, capping his marker, and setting it in its place.

He came out into the hall with her, and Penny shut the door, rolling her eyes when she heard footsteps behind it.

She went several steps down the hall with him, so Leonard couldn't eavesdrop, and said, "_Door from the Past_ is premiering on the SyFy Channel next Thursday, and we're having a party to watch the premier on SyFy. Just something small. Not everyone can make it. But I'm supposed to bring a plus-one."

"I see," said Sheldon. "I assume you'll be taking Leonard. I appreciate the advance notice."

"I'm not taking Leonard."

Sheldon was nonplussed. "Are you two not in a romantic entanglement?"

Penny blinked. "That ended weeks ago."

"When?"

"When I threw his symbol of love and affection hard at his face." If she invited him, he'd think he was back in the game. "I'm inviting you." God help her, but Sheldon had gotten better lately. He'd been surprisingly non-disastrous at Disneyland when she'd gone with him and her old work friends. Penny didn't think anyone had noticed when, on sighting Goofy, he'd done an about-face and retreated hastily behind a tree.

Howard was unthinkable, Raj wouldn't talk, Mark, the sound guy from a commercial she'd done, had turned out to be a total ass, and that left Sheldon and Stuart. Ted, sadly, was married.

Penny said, "But you have to promise to be polite. You don't have to be normal. It's the SyFy Channel, trust me, there's a lot of… eccentrics," weirdos, she'd almost said, "But be nice."

Smiling cunningly, Sheldon said, "Would you say this is a test of my improving social abilities? Perhaps a final?"

"Sure Sheldon. It's the Final to Socializing 101. If you manage to attend a party without making a spectacle of yourself or offending more than a fifth of the people you talk to, you get to take Socializing 201 next."

#  
#

The watch-party was at Danica Gonzalez's house, in Whittier. It was an expansive, two-story building, not quite a mansion but a hell of a lot more than a humble family home. The sun was setting when they reached it, and Penny parked her freshly washed car against the curb.

Sheldon pressed his palms to his temples and said, "Ding ding ding, Polite Mode, Engaged!"

Penny looked at him flatly. "You'd better not keep referring to 'Polite Mode' all through the night.

"I won't," said Sheldon.

The party was supposed to be casual, so Penny was in her nicest black pants, with a green blouse, and had dressed Sheldon in dark jeans and a black blazer, with his favorite Green Lantern shirt on underneath.

They looked good together. The challenge would come when Sheldon opened his mouth. Maybe this hadn't been her best idea. She was used to Sheldon, but other people…

Too late for it now.

They walked up through the immaculate front yard, and Penny knocked on the tall front door. They were let in by the Sound Editor, a balding man who nodded, smiled weakly, and moved off, and they entered the house.

The entryway was large, the ceilings high, the floor glistening hardwood, and the rugs were Persian. Soft film music drifted through the house.

Probably a good idea, that. Play famous film music for a bunch of film people, and no one would ever have to cast about too hard for a small-talk subject.

A short, dark woman saw them and made a beeline toward them. Penny hissed. "That's the producer, Danica. You have to be really, really polite."

Sheldon nodded.

Embracing her lightly, Danica said, "Penny. I'm so pleased you could make it." She gave Penny a dry peck on each cheek as Penny made polite noises in response.

Separating from her, Danica said, "And who's your young man? I'm Danica Gonzalez, the Producer," and she extended a hand.

Rather than taking it, Sheldon said, "My apologies. I don't shake hands. I'm immunocompromised." He bent slightly at the waist. "I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper. Will you accept a bow instead?"

Danica laughed, said, "This one's a cracker," and patted Penny on her shoulder on her way past to greet whoever was coming up behind them.

Nudging him a little ways away from others, Penny hissed, "You do shake hands, normally."

Sheldon said, "With all these strangers? I think not."

Taking a deep breath, Penny shrugged it off. If the worst thing Sheldon did was decline to shake hands in a polite and funny way, she'd count the evening a big success.

They moved into the crowd, and into small talk, Penny watching like a hawk to derail any Sheldon disasters.

The questions about his job came, and the various conversational partners were suitably impressed when he introduced himself as a theoretical physicist at Cal Tech. A few science questions were raised, and Sheldon gave the concise, plain English explanations he'd been perfecting over the past year plus, and it went well enough, with no detectable condescension. He was even listening with rigorous attention to other people's stories and opinions.

His 'polite mode' couldn't possibly be that good.

She was missing something.

She circulated them carefully through the party. Sheldon stuck close to her and didn't approach the hors d'oeuvres, but the first wasn't strange and the second attracted no attention. They'd eaten before they'd come, anyway, and Penny had decided to restrict herself to a single glass of wine over the whole evening, since she'd have to drive home and Sheldon would raise a stink if she tried to drive on two or three.

More people showed up, but it wasn't a huge group. People had brought dates, sure, but SyFy Original Movies tended toward bare bones, and it wasn't like anyone who had a gig elsewhere was gonna fly in for the watch party.

They ran into Ted and his wife. Sheldon knew Ted a little from the HEMA club, though Ted wasn't usually there on Monday evenings, and Sheldon was soon happily involved with Ted and a couple other guys in a conversation about swordsmanship and paintballing. Penny went back and forth between that conversation, and another with some of the girls about union contracts in the digital age.

Sheldon chirped in with a few legal details he knew, because of course he knew legal details, but they were all saved a lecture on it by the start of the broadcast.

The TV was huge, and the living room was too, with lots of seating, but they were still packed in a little tightly. In his efforts to get as far away from the others as possible, Sheldon carefully positioned himself mere millimeters from her, but her date sitting close to her would hardly look odd.

There was more talking than normal in watching a movie, cast and crew reacting to the final cuts, but Sheldon kept a lid on his frustration, aside from the odd twitch, and thankfully, most people saved their talk for the commercial breaks.

20 minutes in, counting commercials, thirty Amazons came out of the misty woods, riding horses, their black-haired Queen at their head.

Penny grinned and squeezed Sheldon. He squeaked, but more at the movie than at being touched, she thought.

Most of her 'army,' was just extras who were kept conveniently off camera almost the whole movie. Her warriors who showed up regularly and had principal parts numbered only three.

Drama ensued, explanations were made, and the fact that everyone from every time period spoke modern American English was simply not brought up.

Penny would've liked to watch Sheldon to see his reactions, but was too transfixed with the thought that hundreds of thousands of people across America and Canada were seeing her, and before long there would be bootleg Indian DVDs with hastily written subs.

Hardly any of her minutes had been cut. Instead, it looked instead as if the edit had made hers a proportionally bigger character.

After sufficient exposition to make the stakes super clear, the climax came. Sheriff Tucker beat down and handcuffed Colonel Wilks, who, for unclear reasons, thought a constant influx of historical beasts and armies would make America gritty again, but it was the Amazon Queen who, on her last legs, ran Tamerlane through with her sword.

Dr. Town got the portals closed, the two leads shared their passionate kiss, and the credits rolled. Penny kept it together until she saw her own name listed fourth among the actors. _Penny Queen, as Aghara, The Amazon Queen._

Tears came unbidden and wouldn't stop.

First Sheldon didn't notice. Then he said, "There there," and patted her shoulder.

When that didn't work, he said, "I'll get you a hot beverage," and looked wildly around. Unfortunately, the refreshments table didn't include tea.

Before he could flag Danica down and attract even more attention, Penny whispered, "I need to get out of here."

He blinked, and they hustled out the back door, into the large yard with its clear pool and drought-tolerant garden, and Penny walked toward the back, stopping under a big old tree with purple trumpet flowers, near gray in the distant porchlight.

Penny wiped her eyes, found her breath, and said, "It's silly. How can it be so much less than what I dreamed of, and still mean more to me than I could've ever imagined?"

Sheldon started on some explanation about how the human brain coded fantasies

Penny cut him off by saying, "I must've been quite a sight for the others." She shouldn't be so humiliated by it. "I imagine you think I'm silly."

Sheldon was very still, and then he said, "I cried the first time I got a paper published in a journal."

"I- You did? Really?"

"And the second time too. Alone in my room. I cried when I won the Stevenson. And when I graduated college. I fainted on stage when I was giving my speech, and later, I cried. And when I got my first Doctorate. At first because I was so happy, but when I saw everyone else had family or friends with them, I cried again. I wished I hadn't walked. I wished I'd arranged for the diploma to come in the mail. I have cried many times. Usually, where no one could see. And you weren't the only person in that room crying."

"I wasn't?"

"You weren't."

She wasn't the only no one in that movie. Not the only one who looked at a part in a SyFy Original Movie and called it the biggest moment of her career.

"You were, however, producing the highest volume of tears, and the most sound."

"Thanks for clarifying that," said Penny.

His, "Your welcome," made clear that he hadn't caught the sarcasm, but Penny's mind was wandering to what he'd just admitted.

He had been vulnerable with her, again, and a lot of what he'd said, she needed to unpack. But later. When she could think.

The tears had stopped, Sheldon, in his Sheldony way, completely killing the mood, and Penny dried her eyes, and fixed her make-up as best she could with the contents of her purse.

They passed through the house quickly, mentioning 'work in the morning,' an excuse that was accepted easily. It was a Thursday, and Sheldon was hardly the only person in attendance with a day job. Even Penny had an audition the next morning. They weren't the first to leave, or the second or fifth either. But Penny wondered if any of the rest had had quite so many eyes looking after their backs.

It was a relief to get in the car, letting out a breath of tension, relaxing, starting the engine and thinking of what soulful music to play.

Sheldon said, "Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding, Polite Mode, Disengaged!"

Penny turned to him. "You're going to pitch a fit if I play music, aren't you?"

"Obviously. Music impairs the ability to drive."

She sighed and started the car. And she smiled.

Two minutes into driving, the euphoria hit.

"I had a major part in a movie!"

"Yes you did."

"I stole the spotlight. No one's going to remember Sheriff Tucker or Doctor Town, but they'll sure as hell remember Aghara, the Amazon Queen!"

"That seems likely."

"I totally kicked Tamerlane's ass. His name's Charles actually, and he's really nice, but I TOTALLY KICKED HIS ASS."

"EYES ON THE ROAD, PENNY!"

The euphoria faded to cheerfulness, their drive was extended by road construction, and Penny chirped on.

"You passed Socializing 101, Sheldon. Danica liked you. You let other people talk. You did good, Sheldon."

"I did well, you mean."

"No. You did good. Good as a noun. As in, 'Sheldor did good all across the land.'"

Sheldon gaped. "Penny! You're demonstrating a basic understanding of English grammar!"

"You can't run a Youtube Channel without going down a few Youtube rabbit holes. And Sheldon, don't you ever tell me about the subjunctive again, because I don't care what it is. I am a descriptivist." She laughed.

"No!" said Sheldon. "You can't be! Not one of those anything-goes heathens!"

"I am."

"And don't think being a descriptivist means not caring about how things work. It doesn't!"

"That's what it means to me."

"Penny, no."

"Yes, Sheldon, yes."

As they rattled down the freeway, Chipperness faded to trepidation, and Penny asked, "What did you think of it really? I know it's not exactly big-time. Not exactly Academy Award or..." A SyFy Original Movie was such a small thing, and Sheldon was a man who spoke with justified seriousness about winning a Nobel Prize. "Probably seems pretty silly to you, huh?"

Sheldon looked at her in wide-eyed confusion. "Why would it seem silly? While physics is the most important pursuit known to humankind, I would be the last deny that there's tremendous value in the creation of fiction. Though those works that have actual value to the human race are seldom those that win 'Academy Awards.' They are science fiction, which cause us to imagine what might be possible in the future, and fantasy, which causes us to imagine what might be possible in a different universe than the one we presently inhabit."

"You like the Godfather," said Penny.

"As light entertainment, it's pleasant. But it's not serious work."

"I see." And she did. What the hell had she been worried about? This was Sheldon. What had she expected? Film snobbery? She was talking to a man who thought Star Trek: The Original Series was the summit of storytelling.

No wonder he'd been respectful at the party. He'd been surrounded by people who made cheesy Sci-Fi stories for a living.

"And my performance?"

He practically glowed. "Though there is still some gap between your performance and that of the great Leonard Nimoy, for instance, I would assign you an A minus." And he practically babbled with excitement.

Sheldon said, "You did not, perhaps, communicate the confusion and bereavement of a Warrior Queen separated from her Queendom with as much depth as you might have hoped. However, your implacability in forcing yourself upon the situation was entirely suited to a Warrior Queen. Your apparent emotions were appropriate, and at other times bizarre and foreign to modern-American expectations, as suits an Amazonian Queen, and your resolve to save not only your own people, but the people of Smokey Bend, was commendable. You excelled in 'physical acting,' as it's called. Unrealistic decapitations aside, your fight scenes were of exceptionally high quality."

"Thanks," said Penny.

He gushed on about it for the whole damn ride. For the first ten minutes, she was pleased, but by the time they got home, Penny was getting irritated with the fanboying.

She forced a hug on him, which he reacted to like a piece of plywood, shoved him in his apartment, said goodnight to the door, and bounded off to her own apartment.

She went to bed wondering where the day ranked among the best of her life.

#  
#

Sheldon had known he couldn't let her down. Not after he'd found out she'd broken up with Leonard over him.

For all the arrogance, it'd never occurred to Sheldon that anyone other than his own close family might choose him over Leonard. And that wasn't precisely what had happened — Leonard had erred, putting justice on Sheldon's side, but still, he would've guessed Leonard would weigh more than Sheldon plus justice.

There was, of course, the pecuniary aspect. He was Penny's business partner. But Sheldon didn't believe that figured. Couldn't believe it had had any part in Penny's instant, incandescent outrage. Refused to fear that there'd been any thoughts of money when Penny had laid a clean sheet across his bed, lay down on it, and gently put an arm across his shoulders.

For Sheldon, that was not hard to do. He seldom thought of money.

:::

Alright. Things are going. With Penny and Sheldon at least.

What few ideas I have about the film business are mostly borne of what little I read about major movies. But I suppose that like any business, it's full of lonely people of average intelligence and average character, trying to feel a little bit better about themselves, and that's the more important part to write right.


End file.
